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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



OUR PHILADELPHIA 



IN THE 
LAND OF TEMPLES 

By JOSEPH PENNELL 

Reproductions of a series of lithographs by him, to- 
gether with impressions and notes by the artist and an 
introduction by W. H. D. ROUSE, M.A., L.H.D. 

Crown Quarto, ■printed on dull finished 
paper, lithograph by Mr. Pennell 
on cover. $1.25 net. 



JOSEPH PENNELL'S 

PICTURES OF 

THE PANAMA CANAL 

Reproductions of a series of twenty-eight lithographs 
made on the Isthmus of Panama, January-March, 
1912, with Mr. Pennell's introduction, giving his expe- 
riences, impressions and full description of each picture. 

Volume 7 '4 ^V 10 inches. Beautifully printed 

on dull finished paper. Lithograph by 

Mr. Pennell on cover. $1.25 net. 



life of james 
McNeill whistler 

By 
ELIZABETH R. and JOSEPH PENNELL 

The Pennells have thoroughly revised the material in 
their Authorized Life, and added much new matter, 
which for lack of space they were unable to incorporate 
in the elaborate two-volume edition now out of print. 
Fully illustrated with 96 plates reproduced from Whis.- 
tler's works, more than half reproduced for the first time. 

Crown octavo. Fifth and revised edition. 
Whistler binding, deckle edge, $3.50 net. 
Three quarters grain levant, $7.50 net. 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA 







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LOOKING UP BROAD STREET FROM SPRUCE STREET 



6UR PHILADELPHIA 

DESCRIBED BY ELIZABETH ROBINS 
PENNELL ILLUSTRATED WITH^ 
ONE HUNDRED & FIVE llTHO 
GRAPHS BY JOSEPH PENNELL^ 




PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

MCMXIV 



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COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 



J 



PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1914 



PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS 

PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A. 



NOV 19 1914 

g)CI,A387575 ^ 



PREFACE 

To-day, when it is the American born in the Ghetto, 
or Syria, or some other remote part of the earth, whose 
recollections are prized, it may seem as if the following 
pages called for an apology. I have none to make. They 
were written simply for the pleasure of gathering to- 
gether my old memories of a town that, as my native place, 
is dear to me and my new impressions of it after an absence 
of a quarter of a century. But now I have finished I add 
to this pleasure in my book the pleasant belief that it will 
have its value for others, if only for two reasons. In 
the first place, J.'s drawings which illustrate it are his 
record of the old Philadelphia that has passed and the 
new Philadelphia that is passing — a record that in a few 
years it will be impossible for anybody to make, so con- 
tinually is Philadelphia changing. In the second, my 
story of Philadelphia, perfect or imperfect, may in as 
short a time be equally impossible for anybody to repeat, 
since I am one of those old-fashioned Americans, Ameri- 
can by birth with many generations of American fore- 
fathers, who are rapidly becoming rare creatures among 
the hordes of new-fashioned Americans who were any- 
thing and everything else no longer than a year or a week 



or an hour ago. 



Elizabeth Robins Pennell 



3 Adelphi Terrace House, London 
May, 1914 



CONTENTS 

CnAPTER PAGE 

I. An Explanation 1 

II. A Child in Philadelphia 24 

III. A Child in Philadelphia (Continued) 48 

IV. At the Convent 72 

V. Transitional 104 

VI. The Social Adventure 130 

VII. The Social Adventure: The Assembly 154 

VIII. A Question of Creed 175 

IX. The First Awakening 205 

X. The Miracle of Work 233 

XI. The Romance of Work 268 

XII. Philadelphia and Literature 304 

XIII. Philadelphia and Literature (Continued) 332 

XIV. Philadelphia and Art 368 

XV. Philadelphia and Art (Continued) 390 

XVI. Philadelphia at Table 413 

XVII. Philadelphia at Table (Continued) 433 

XVIII. Philadelphia after a Quarter of a Century 451 

XIX. Philadelphia after a Quarter of a Century 

(Continued) 477 

XX. Philadelphia after a Quarter of a Century 

(Continued) 509 

Index 543 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

Looking up Broad Street from Spruce Street Frontispiece 

Delancey Place 3 

"Portico Row," Spruce Street 7 

Arch Street Meeting House 13 

The Schuylkill South from Callowhill Street 17 

Friends' Graveyard, Germantown 21 

In Rittenhouse Square 25 

The Pennsylvania Hospital from the Grounds 29 

"Eleventh and Spruce" 33 

Drawing Room at Cliveden 37 

Back- yards, St. Peter's Spire in the Distance 45 

Independence Square and the State House 51 

Christ Church Interior 57 

Classic Fairmount 65 

Down Pine Street 69 

Loudoun, Main Street, Germantown 75 

Entrance to Fairmount and the Washington Statue 83 

Main Street, Germantown 89 

Arch Street Meeting 95 

The Train Shed, Broad Street Station 99 

St. Peter's, Interior 105 

The Pennsylvania Hospital from Pine Street 109 

Second Street Market 115 

Fourth and Arch Streets Meeting House 121 

Johnson House, Germantown 127 

The Customs House 131 

Under Broad Street Station at Fifteenth Street 135 

The Philadelphia Club, Thirteenth and Walnut Streets 141 

The New Ritz-Carlton; The Finishing Touches; The Walnut Street 

Addition Has Since Been Made 149 



xii ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Hall, Stenton 155 

"Proclaim Liberty Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabi- 
tants Thereof" 159 

Bed Room, Stenton, the Home of James Logan 163 

The Tunnel in the Park ■ 167 

The Boat Houses on the Schuylkill 171 

The Pulpit, St. Peter's 179 

The Cathedral, Logan Square 185 

Christ Church, from Second Street 189 

First Presbyterian Church, Seventh Street and Washington Square 195 

Old Swedes' Church 201 

Independence Hall: The Original Desk on Which the Declaration 
of Independence was Signed and the Chair Used by the President 

of Congress, John Hancock, in 1776 207 

Philadelphia from Belmont 211 

The Dining Room, Stenton 217 

Down the Aisle at Christ Church 223 

The Bridge Across Market Street from Broad Street Station .... 229 

State House Yard 235 

The Penitentiary 247 

On the Reading, at Sixteenth Street 251 

Locust Street East from Broad Street 255 

Broad Street, Looking South from above Arch Street 261 

Clinton Street, with the Pennsylvania Hospital at its End 265 

The Cherry Street Stairs Near the River 269 

The Morris House on Eighth Street 273 

The Old Coaching-Inn Yard 279 

Franklin's Grave 285 

Arch Street Meeting 291 

Cliveden, the Chew House 295 

Bartram's 301 

Carpenter's Hall, Interior 305 

Main Street, Germantown 311 

Arch Street Meeting — Interior 317 

Front and Callowhill 321 

The Elevated at Market Street Wharf 327 



ILLUSTRATIONS xiii 

Dr. Furness's House, West Washington Square, Just Before it was 

Pulled Down 333 

The Germantown Academy 339 

The State House from Independence Square 345 

"The Little Street of Clubs," Camac Street Above Spruce Street 349 
Down Sansom Street from Eighth Street. The Low Houses at 
Seventh Street Have Since Been Torn Down and the Western 

End of the Curtis Building Now Occupies Their Place 353 

The Double Stairway in the Pennsylvania Hospital 359 

Carpenter's Hall, Built 1771 365 

Independence Hall — Lengthwise View 369 

GiRARD College 377 

Upsala, Germantown 383 

The Hall at Cliveden, the Chew House 387 

The Old Water-Works, Fairmount Park 391 

The Stairway, State House 397 

Upper Room, Stenton 403 

Wyck — The Doorway from Within 409 

The Philadelphia Dispensary from Independence Square 415 

Morris House, Germantown 419 

The State House Colonnade 425 

The Smith Memorial, West Fairmount Park 431 

The Basin, Old Water- Works 435 

Girard Street 441 

The Union League, from Broad and Chestnut Streets 445 

Broad Street Station 453 

Wanamaker's 457 

St. Peter's Churchyard 461 

City Hall from the Schuylkill 465 

Chestnut Street Bridge 469 

The Narrow Street 475 

The Market Street Elevated at the Delaware End 479 

The Railroad Bridges at Falls of Schuylkill 483 

The Parkway Pergolas 487 

Market Street West of the Schuylkill 491 

Manheim Cricket Ground 497 



xiv ILLUSTRATIONS 

Dock Street and the Exchange 501 

The Locomotive Yard, West Philadelphia 507 

The Girakd Trust Company 511 

Twelfth Street Meeting House 515 

Wyck 519 

The Massed Sky-scrapers Above the Housetops 523 

Sunset. Philadelphia from Across the Delaware 527 

The Union League Between the Sky-scrapers 531 

Up Broad Street from League Island 535 

From Gray's Ferry 539 



/ 



OUR PHILADELPHIA 

CHAPTER I: AN EXPLANATION 



I THINK I have a right to call mj'self a Philadelphian, 
though I am not sure if Philadelphia is of the same 
opinion. I was born in Philadelphia, as my Father 
was before me, but my ancestors, having had the sense to 
emigrate to America in time to make me as American as 
an American can be, were then so inconsiderate as to 
waste a couple of centuries in Virginia and Maryland, 
and my Grandfather was the first of the family to settle 
in a town where it is important, if you belong at all, to 
have belonged from the beginning. However, J.'s ances- 
tors, with greater wisdom, became at the earliest available 
moment not only Philadelphians, but Philadelphia 
Friends, and how very much more that means Philadel- 
phians know without my telling them. And so, as he 
does belong from the beginning and as I would have be- 
longed had I had my choice, for I would rather be a 
Philadelphian than any other sort of American, I do not 
see why I cannot call myself one despite the blunder of 
my forefathers in so long calling themselves something 

else. 

1 1 



2 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

I might hope that my affection alone for Philadelphia 
would give me the right, were I not Philadelphian enough 
to know that Philadelphia is, as it always was and al- 
ways will be, cheerfully indifferent to whatever love its 
citizens may have to offer it. I can hardly suppose my 
claim for gratitude greater than that of its Founder or 
the long succession of Philadelphians between his time 
and mine who have loved it and been snubbed or bullied in 
return. Indeed, in the face of this Philadelphia indiffer- 
ence, my affection seems so superfluous that I often 
wonder why it should be so strong. But wise or foolish, 
there it is, strengthening with the years whether I will or 
no, — a deeper rooted sentiment than I thought I was 
capable of for the town with which the happiest memo- 
ries of my childhood are associated, where the first irre- 
sponsible days of my youth were spent, which never 
ceased to be home to me during the more than a quarter 
of a century I lived away from it. 

Besides, Philadelphia attracts me apart from what it 
may stand for in memory or from the charm sentiment 
may lend to it. I love its beauty — the beauty of tranquil 
streets, of red brick houses with white marble steps, of 
pleasant green shade, of that peaceful look of the past 
Philadelphians cross the ocean to rave over in the little 
old dead towns of England and Holland — a beauty that 
is now fast disappearing. I love its character — the calm, 
the dignity, the reticence with which it has kept up through 



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AN EXPLANATION 5 

the centuries with the American pace, the airs of a demure 
country village with which it has done the work and 
earned the money of a hig bustling town, the cloistered 
seclusion with which it enjoys its luxury and hides its 
palaces behind its plain brick fronts — a character that also 
is fast going. I love its history, though I am no historian, 
for the little I know colours its beauty and accounts for 
its character. 

II 

It is not for nothing that I begin with this flourish 
of my birth certificate and public confession of love. I 
want to establish my right, first, to call myself a Phila- 
delphian, and then, to talk about Philadelphia as freely 
as we only can talk about the places and the people and 
the things we belong to and care for. I would not dare to 
take such a liberty with Philadelphia if my references 
were not in order, for, as a Philadelphian, I appreciate the 
risk. Not that I have any idea of writing the history of 
Philadelphia. I hope I have the horror, said to be pecu- 
liar to all generous minds, of what are commonly called 
facts, and also the intelligence not to attempt what I know 
I cannot do. Another good reason is that the history has 
already been written more than once. Philadelphians, 
almost from their cave-dwelling period, have seemed con- 
scious of the eye of posterity upon them. They had 
hardlv landed on the banks of the Delaware before they 



6 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

began to write alarmingly long letters which they pre- 
served, and elaborate diaries which they kept with equal 
care. And the letter-writing, diary-keeping fever was so 
in the air that strangers in the town caught it: from 
Richard Castleman to John Adams, from John Adams to 
Charles Dickens, from Charles Dickens to Henry James, 
every visitor, with writing for profession or amusement, 
has had more or less to say about it — usually more. 
The Historical Society of Pennsylvania has gathered the 
old material together; oiu* indispensable antiquary, John 
Watson, has gleaned the odds and ends left by the way; 
and no end of modern writers in Philadelphia have ran- 
sacked their stores of information: Dr. Weir Mitchell 
making novels out of them, Mr. Sydney Fisher and Miss 
Agnes Repplier, history; Mr. Hampton Carson using 
them as the basis of further research ; Miss Anne Hollings- 
worth Wharton resurrecting Colonial life and society and 
fashions from them, Mr. Eberlein and Mr. Lippincott, the 
genealogy of Colonial houses ; other patriotic citizens help- 
ing themselves in one way or another; until, among them 
all, they have filled a large library and prepared a suffi- 
ciently formidable task for the historian of Philadelphia in 
generations to come without my adding to his burden. 

Ill 

It is an amusing library, as Philadelphians may be- 
lieve now they are getting over the bad habit into which 
they had fallen of belittling their town, much in their 






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AN EXPLANATION 9 

town's fashion of belittling them. I am afraid it was 
partly their fault if the rest of America fell into the same 
habit. As I recall my old feelings and attitude, it seems 
to me that in my day we must have been brought up to 
look down upon Philadelphia. The town surely cut a 
poor figure in my school books, and the purplest patches 
in Colonial history must have been there reserved for 
New England or New York, Virginia or the Carolinas, 
for any and every colony rather than the Province of 
Pennsylvania, or I would not have left school better 
posted in the legends of Powhatan and Pocahontas than 
in the life of William Penn, and more edified by the burn- 
ing of witches and the tracking of Indians than by the 
struggles of Friends to give every man the liberty to go 
to Heaven his own way. The amiable contempt in which 
Philadelphians held William Penn revealed itself in their 
free-and-easy way of speaking of him, if they spoke of 
him at all, as Billy Penn, though Penn would have been 
the last to invite the familiarity. Probably few outside the 
Society of Friends could have said just what he had done 
for their town, or just what they owed to him. If I am 
not mistaken, the prevailing idea was that his chief great- 
ness consisted in the cleverness with which he fooled the 
land out of the Indians for a handful of beads. 

The present generation could not be so ignorant if it 
wanted to. The statue of Penn, in full-skirted coat and 
broad-brimmed hat, dominating Philadelphia from the 



10 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

ugly tower of the Public Buildings, though it may not be 
a thing of beauty, at least suggests to Philadelphians that 
it would not have been put up there, the most conspicuous 
landmark from the streets and the surrounding country, 
if Penn had not been somebody, or done something, of 
some consequence. As for the rest of America, I doubt 
if it often comes so near to Philadelphia that it can see 
the statue. The last time I went to New York from Lon- 
don I met on the steamer a man from Michigan who had 
obviously been but a short time before a man from Cork, 
and who was so keen to stop in Philadelphia on his way 
West that I might have been astonished had I not heard 
so much of the miraculously rapid Americanization of the 
modern emigrant. Most people do not want to stop in 
Philadelphia unless they have business there, and he had 
none, and naturally I could not imagine any other motive 
except the desire to see the town which is of the greatest 
historic importance in the United States and which still 
possesses proofs of it. But the man from Michigan gave 
me to understand, and pretty quick too, that he did not 
know Philadelphia had a history and old buildings to 
prove it, and what was more, he did not care if it had. He 
guessed history wasn't in his line. What he wanted was 
to take the next train to Atlantic City ; folks he knew had 
been there and said it was great. And I rather think this 
is the way most Americans, from America or from Cork, 
feel about Philadelphia. 



AN EXPLANATION 11 

IV 

It is not my affair to enlighten them or anybody else. 
I have a more personal object in view. Philadelphia may 
mean to other people nothing at all — that is their loss; 
I am concerned entirely with what it means to me. In 
those wonderful Eighteen-Nineties, now written about 
with awe by the j^ounger generation as if no less pre- 
historic than the period of the Renaissance, until it makes 
me feel a new Methusaleh to own that I lived and worked 
through them, we were always being told that art should 
be the artist's record of nature seen through a tempera- 
ment, criticism the critic's story of his adventures among 
the world's masterpieces, and though I am neither artist 
nor critic, though I am not siu'e what a temperament is, 
much less if I have one, still I fancy this expresses in a 
way the end I have set myself in writing about Philadel- 
phia. For I should like, if I can, to record my personal 
impressions of the town I love and to give my adventures 
among the beautiful things, the humorous things, the 
tragic things it contains in more than ample measure. My 
interest is in my personal experiences, but these have been 
coloured by the history of Philadelphia since I have 
dabbled in it, and have become richer and more amusing. 
I have learned, with age and reading and travelling, that 
Philadelphia as it is cannot really be known without some 
knowledge of Philadelphia as it was; also that Philadel- 
phia, both as it is and as it was, is worth knowing. Ameri- 
cans will wander to the ends of the earth to study the 



12 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

psychology — as they call it — of people they never could 
understand however hard they tried; they will shut them- 
selves up in a remote town of Italy or Spain to master the 
secrets of its prehistoric past; they will squander months 
in the Bibliotheque Nationale or the British INIuseum to 
get at the true atmosphere of Paris or London ; when, had 
they only stopped their journey at Broad Street Station 
in Philadelphia or, if they were Philadelphians, never 
taken the train out of it, they could have had all the psy- 
chology and secrets and atmosphere they could ask for, 
with much less trouble and expense. 

I have never been to any town anywhere, and I have 
been to many in my time, that has more decided character 
than Philadelphia, or to any where this character is more 
difficult to understand if the clue is not got from the past. 
For instance, people talk about Philadelphia as if its one 
talent was for sleep, while the truth is, taking the sum of 
its achievements, no other American town has done so 
much hard work, no other has accomplished so much for 
the country. Impressed as we are by the fact, it would be 
impossible to account for the reputation if it were not 
known that the people who made Philadelphia presented 
the same puzzling contradiction in their own lives — the 
only people who ever understood how to be in the world 
and not of it. 

The usual alternative to not being of the world is to be 
in a cloister or to live like a hermit, to accept a rule in 
common or to renounce social intercourse. But the 







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ARCH STREET MEETING HOUSE 



AN EXPLANATION 15 

Friends did not have to shut themselves up to conquer 
worldliness, they did not have to renounce the world's work 
and its rewards. For " affluence of the world's goods," 
Isaac Norris, writing from Philadelphia, could felicitate 
Jonathan Dickinson, " knowing hoth thyself and dear 
wife have hearts and souls fit to use them." That was 
better than shirking temptation in a monk's cell or a 
philosopher's tub. If George Fox wore a leather suit, it 
was because he found it convenient, but William Penn, for 
whom it would have been highly inconvenient, had no 
scruple in dressing like other men of his position and 
wearing the blue ribbon of office. Nor because religion 
was freed from all unessential ornament, was the house 
stripped of comfort and luxury. I write about Friends 
with hesitation. I have been married to one now for many 
years and can realize the better therefore that none save 
Friends can write of themselves with authority. But I 
hope I am right in thinking, as I always have thought 
since I read Thomas Elwood's Memoirs, that their atti- 
tude is excellently explained in his account of his first 
visit to the Penningtons " after they were become 
Quakers " when, though he was astonished at the new 
gravity of their look and behaviour, he found Guli Spring- 
ett amusing herself in the garden and the dinner " hand- 
some." For the world's goods never being the end they 
w^re to the World's People, Friends were as undisturbed 
by their possession as by their absence and, as a conse- 
quence, could meet and accept life, whether its gifts were 



16 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

wealth and power or poverty and obscurity, with the 
serenity few other men have found outside the cloister. 
Moreover, they could speak the truth, calling a spade a 
spade, or their enemy the scabbed sheep, or smooth silly 
man, or vile fellow, or inhuman monster, or villain infect- 
ing the air with a hellish stench, he no doubt v/as, and 
never for a moment lose their tempers. This serenity — 
this " still strength " — is as the poles apart from the 
phlegmatic, constitutional slowness of the Dutch in New 
York or, on the other hand, from the tranquillity Henry 
James traces in progressive descent from taste, tradition, 
and history, even from the philosopher's calm of achieved 
indifference, and Friends, having carried it to perfection 
in their own conduct, left it as a legacy to their town. 

The usual American town, when it hustles, lets nobody 
overlook the fact that it is hustling. But Philadelphia 
has done its work as calmly as the Friends have done theirs, 
never boasting of its prosperity, never shouting its success 
and riches from the house-top, and its dignified serenity 
has been mistaken for sleep. Whistler used to saj^ that if 
the General does not tell the world he has won the battle, 
the world will never hear of it. The trouble with Phila- 
delphia is that it has kept its triumph to itself. But we 
have ffot so far from the old Friends that no harm can be 
done if Philadelphians begin to interpret their town's 
serenity to a world capable of confusing it M^ith drowsi- 
ness. If America is ready to forget, if for long Philadel- 
phians were as ready, it is high time we should remember 



■V .^• 




THE SCHUYLKILL SOUTH FROM CALLOWHILL STREET 



AN EXPLANATION 19 

ourselves and remind America of the services Philadel- 
phia has rendered to the country, and its good taste in 
rendering them with so little fuss that all the country has 
done in return is to laugh at Philadelphia as a back 
number. 



Philadelphians have grown accustomed to the laugh. 
We have heard it since we were in our cradles. We are 
used to have other Americans come to our town and, — in 
the face of our factory chimneys smoking along the 
Schuylkill and our ship-building yards in full swing on 
the Delaware, and our locomotives pouring out over the 
world by I do not know how many thousands from the 
works in Broad Street, and our mills going at full pressure 
in the " Little England " of Kensington, in Frankford and 
Germantown, — in the face of our busy schools and hos- 
pitals and academies, — in the face of our stores and banks 
and charities, — that is, in the face of our industry, our 
learning, and our philanthropy that have given tips to the 
whole country, — see only our sleep-laden eyes and hear 
only our sluggish snores. We know the foolish stories 
they tell. We have heard many more times than we can 
count of the Bostonian who retires to Philadelphia for 
complete intellectual rest, and the New Yorker w^ho when 
he has a day off comes to spend a week in Philadeli^hia, 
and the Philadelphian who goes to New York to eat the 
snails he cannot catch in his own back-yard. We have 



20 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

heard until we have it by heart that Philadelphia is a 
cemetery, and the road to it, the Road to Yesterday. We 
are so familiar with the venerable cliche that we can but 
wonder at its gift of eternal youth. Never was there a 
jest that wore so well with those who make it. The comic 
column is rarely complete without it, and it is forever 
cropping up where least expected. In the last American 
novel I opened Philadelphia was described as hanging on 
to the last strap of the last car to the sound of Gabriel's 
horn on Judgment Day; in the last American magazine 
story I read the Philadelphia heroine by her Philadelphia 
calm conquered the cowboys of the west, as Friends of 
old disarmed their judges in court. In the general Ameri- 
canization of London, even the London papers have seized 
upon the slowness of Philadelphia as a joke for Londoners 
to roar at. Li Hung Chang couldn't visit Philadelphia 
without dozing through the ceremonies in his honour and 
noting the ap^^ropriateness of it in his diary. And so it 
goes on, the witticism to-day apparently as fresh as it was 
in the Stone Age from which it has come down to us. 

If Philadelphians laugh, that is another matter — 
every man has the right to laugh at himself. But we have 
outlived our old affectation of indifference to our town, 
I am not sure that we are not pushing our profession of 
pride in it too far to the other extreme. I remember the 
last time I was home I went to a public meeting called to 
talk about the world's waterways, and no Philadelphian 
present, from the Mayor down, could talk of anything 




^^^ 






FRIENDS' GRAVEYARD, GERMANTOWN 



AN EXPLANATION 23 

but Philadelphia and its greatness. But whatever may be 
our pose now, or next year, or the year after, there is 
always beneath it a substantial layer of affection, for we 
cannot help knowing, if nobody else does, what Philadel- 
phia is and what Philadelphia has done. Certainly, it is be- 
cause I know that I, for one, would so much rather be the 
Philadelphian I am, and my ancestors were not, than any 
other sort of American, that, as I have grown older, my 
love for my town has surprised me by its depth, and makes 
my confession of it now seem half pleasure, half duty. 



CHAPTER II: A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA 

I 

IF I made my first friendships from my perambulator, 
or trundling my hoop and skipping my rope, in 
Rittenhouse Square, as every Philadelphian should, 
they were interrupted and broken so soon that I have no 
memory of them. 

It was my fate to be sent to boarding-school before I 
had time to lay in a store of the associations that are the 
common property of happier Philadelphians of my genera- 
tion. I do not know if I was ever taken, as J. and other 
privileged children were, to the Pennsylvania Hospital 
on summer evenings to see William Penn step down from 
his pedestal when he heard the clock strike six, or to the 
Philadelphia Library to wait until Benjamin Franklin, 
hearing the same summons, left his high niche for a neigh- 
bouring saloon. I cannot recall the firemen's fights and 
the cries of negroes selling pop-corn and ice-cream thi-ough 
the streets that fill some Philadelphia reminiscences I have 
read. I cannot say if I ever went anywhere by the 
omnibus sleigh in winter, or to West Philadelphia by the 
stage at any time of the year. I never coasted down the 
hills of Germantown, I never skated on the Schuylkill. 
When my contemporaries compare notes of these and 
many more delightful things in the amazing, romantic, 

24 













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IN RITTENHOUSE SQUARE 



A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA 27 

incredible Philadelphia they grew up in, it annoys me 
to find myself out of it all, sharing none of their recollec- 
tions, save one and that the most trivial. For, from the 
vagueness of the remote past, no event emerges so clearly 
as the periodical visit of " Crazy Norah," a poor, harm- 
less, half-witted wanderer, who wore a man's hat and top 
boots, with bits of ribbon scattered over her dress, and 
who, on her aimless rounds, drifted into all the Philadel- 
phia kitchens to the fearful joy of the children; and my 
memory may be less of her personally than of much talk 
of her helped by her resemblance, or so I fancied, to a 
picture of Meg Merrilies in a collection of engravings 
of Walter Scott's heroines owned by an Uncle, and almost 
the first book I can remember. 

II 

But great as was my loss, I fancy my memories of old 
Philadelphia gain in vividness for being so few. One of 
the most vivid is of the interminable drive in the slow 
horse-car which was the longest part of the journey to 
and from my Convent school, — which is the longest part of 
any journey I ever made, not to be endured at the time 
but for the chanting over and over to myself of all the 
odds and ends of verse I had got by heart, from the dramas 
of IJtth' Miss Muffett and Little Jack Horner to Poe's 
Bells and Tennyson's Laclij of Shalott — but in memory a 
drive to be rejoiced in, for nothing could have been more 
characteristic of Philadelphia as it was then. The Con- 



28 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

vent was in Torresdale on the Pennsylvania Railroad, and 
the Pennsylvania Depot — Philadelphia had as yet no 
Stations and Terminals — was in the distant, unknown 
quarter of Frankford. I believe it is used as a freight 
station now and I have sometimes thought that, for senti- 
ment's sake, I should like to make a pilgrimage to it over 
the once well-travelled road. But the modern trolley has 
deserted the straight course of the unadventurous horse- 
car of my day and I doubt if ever again I could find my 
way back. The old horse-car went, without turn or twist, 
along Third Street. I started from the corner of Spruce, 
having got as far as that by the slower, more infrequent 
Spruce Street car, and after I had passed the fine old 
houses where Philadelphians — not aliens — lived, a good 
part of the route lay through a busy business section. But 
there has stayed with me as my chief impression of the 
endless street a sense of eternal calm. No matter how 
much solid work was being done, no matter how^ many 
fortunes were being made and unmade, it was always 
placid on the surface, uneventful and unruffled. The car, 
jingling along in leisurely fashion, was the one sign of 
animation. 

Or often, in spring and summer, I went by boat, from 
— so false is memory — I cannot say what wharf, up the 
Delaware. This was a pleasanter journey and every bit 
as leisurely and as characteristic in its way of Philadel- 
phia life. For though I might catch the early afternoon 
boat, it was sure to be full of business men returning 



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THE PENxNSYLVAXIA HOSPITAL FROM THK (IKOUNDS 



A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA 31 

from their offices to their houses on the river. Philadel- 
phians did not wait for the jNIain Line to he invented to 
settle in the suburbs. They have always had a fancy for 
the near country ever since Penn lived in state at Penns- 
bur}^ and Logan at Stenton; ever since Bartram planted 
his garden on the banks of the Schuylkill, and Arnold 
brought Peggy Shippen as his bride to Mount Pleasant; 
ever since all the Colonial country houses we are so proud 
of were built. I have the haziest memory of the places 
where the boat stopped between Philadelphia and Torres- 
dale and of the people who got out there. But I cannot 
help remembering Torresdale for it was as prominent a 
stopping-place in my journey through youth as it is in the 
journey up the Delaware. The Convent was my home 
for years, and I had many friends in the houses down by 
the riverside and scattered over the near country. Their 
names are among the most familiar in my youthfid recol- 
lections : the Macalisters, the Grants — one of my brothers 
named after the father — the Hopkins — another of my 
brothers marrying in the family — the Fishers, Keatings, 
Steadmans, Kings, Bories, Whelans. It was not often I 
could go or come without meeting somebody I knew on 
board. I am a cockney myself, I love the town, but I can 
understand that Philadelphians whose homes were in the 
country, especially if that country lay along the shores 
of the Delaware, liked to get back early enough to profit 
by it; that, busy and full of affairs as they might be, they 
not only liked but managed to, shows how far hustling 



32 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

was from the old Philadelphia scheme of things. Nowa- 
days the motor brings the country into town and town into 
the country. But the miles between town and country 
were then lengthened into leagues by the leisurely boat and 
the leisurely horse-car which, as I look back, seem to set the 
pace of life in Philadelphia when I was young. 

Ill 

At first my holidays were spent mostly at the Convent. 
My Father, with the young widower's embarrassment 
when confronted by his motherless children, solved the 
problem the existence of my Sister and myself was to him 
by putting us where he knew we were safe and well out of 
his way. I do not blame him. What is a man to do when 
he finds himself with two little girls on his clumsy mascu- 
line hands? But the result was he had no house of his 
own to bring us to when the other girls hurried joyfully 
home at Christmas and Easter and for the long summer 
holiday. It hurt as I used to watch them walking briskly 
down the long path on the way to the station. And yet, 
I scored in the end, for Philadelphia was the more marvel- 
lous to me, visiting it rarely, than it could have been to 
children to whom it was an everyday affair. 

For years my Grandfather's house was the scene of 
the occasional visit. He lived in Spruce Street above 
Eleventh — the typical Philadelphia Street, straight and 
narrow, on either side rows of red brick houses, each with 
white marble steps, white shutters below and green 



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"ELEVENTH AND SPRUCE' 



A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA 35 

shutters above, and along the red brick pavement rows of 
trees which made Philadelphia the green country town 
of Penn's desire, but the Philadelphian's life a burden in 
the springtime before the coming of the sparrows. Phila- 
delphia, as I think of it in the old days at the season when 
the leaves were growing green, is always heavy with the 
odour of the evil-smelling ailantus and full of measuring- 
worms falling upon me from every tree. My fear of 
" Crazy Norah " is hardly less clear in my early memories 
than the terror these worms were to the dear fragile little 
Aunt who had cared for me in my first motherless years, 
and who still, during my holidays, kept a watchfid eye on 
me to see that I put my " gums " on if I went out in the 
rain and that I had the money in my pocket to stop at 
Dexter's for a plate of ice-cream. I can recall as if it 
were yesterday, her shrieks one Easter Sunday when she 
came home from church and found a green horror on her 
new spring bonnet and another on her petticoat, and her 
miserable certainty all through the early Sunday dinner 
that many more were crawling over her somewhere. But, 
indeed, the Philadelphians of to-day can never know from 
what loathsome creatiu'es the sparrows have delivered 
them. 

^ly Grandfather's house was as typical as the street — 
one of the quite modest four-story brick houses that were 
thought unseemly sky-scrapers and fire-traps when they 
were first built in Philadelphia. I can never go by the old 
house of many memories — for sale, alas! the last time I 



3G OUR PHILADELPHIA 

passed and still for sale according to the last news to 
reach me even as I correct my proofs- — without seeing 
myself as I used to be, arriving from the Convent, small, 
plain, unbecomingly dressed and conscious of it, with my 
pretty, always-becomingly-dressed because nothing was 
unbecoming to her, not-in-the-least-shy Sister, both stand- 
ing in the vestibule between the inevitable Philadelphia 
two front doors, the outer one as inevitably open all day 
long. And I see myself, when, in answer to our ring, the 
servant had opened the inner one as well, entering in a 
fresh access of shyness the wide lofty hall, with the front 
and back parlours to the right; Philadelphians had no 
drawing-rooms then but were content with parlours, as 
Penn had been who knew them by no other name. Com- 
pared to the rich Philadelphian's house to-day, my Grand- 
father's looks very impretending, but when houses like it, 
with two big parlours separated by folding doors, first 
became the fashion in Philadelphia, they passed for palaces 
with Philadelphians who disapproved of display, and 
the " tradesmen " living soberly in them were rebuked for 
aspiring to the luxury of princes. I cannot imagine why, 
for the old Colonial houses are, many of them, as lofty 
and more spacious, though it was the simple spaciousness 
of my Grandfather's and the loftiness of its ceilings that 
gave it charm. 

My Grandfather's two parlours, big as they were, 
would strike nobody to-day as palatial. It needs the 
glamour time throws over them for me to discover princely 




DRAWING ROOM AT CLIVEDEN 



A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA 39 

luxury in the rosewood and reps masterpieces of a de- 
plorable period with which they were furnished, or in 
their decoration of beaded cushions and worsted-work 
mats and tidies, the lavish gifts of a devoted family. But 
I cannot remember the parlours and forget the respect 
with which they once inspired me. I own to a lingering 
affection for their crowning touch of ugliness, an ottoman 
with a top of the fashionable Berlin work of the day— a 
white arum lily, done by the superior talent of the fancy 
store, on a red ground filled in by the industrious giver. 
It stood between the two front windows, so that we might 
have the additional rapture of seeing it a second time in the 
mirror which hung behind it. Opposite, between the two 
windows of the back parlour, was a " Rogers Group " on 
a blue stand; and a replica, with variations, of both the 
ottoman and the " Rogers Group " could have been found 
in every other Philadelphia front and back parlour. I 
recall also the three or four family portraits which I held 
in tremendous awe, however I may feel about them now; 
and the immensely high vases, unique creations that could 
not possibly have been designed for any purpose save to 
ornament the Philadelphia mantelpiece; and the trans- 
parent lamp-shade, decorated with pictures of cats and 
children and landscapes, that at night, when the gas was 
lit, helped to keep me awake until I could escape to bed ; 
and the lustre chandeliers hanging from the ceiling — what 
joy when one of the long prisms came loose and I could 
capture it and, looking through it, walk across the parlours 



40 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

and up the stairs straight into the splendid dangers of 
Rainbow Land! 

I had no time for these splendours on my arrival, nor, 
fortunately for me, was I left long to the tortures of my 
shyness. At the end of the hall, facing me, was the wide 
flight of stairs leading to the upper stories, and on the first 
landing, at their turning just where a few more steps 
led beyond into the back-building dining-room, my Grand- 
mother, in her white cap and purple ribbons, stood wait- 
ing. In my memory she and that landing are inseparable. 
Whenever the door bell rang, she was out there at the first 
sound, ready to say " Come right up, my dear! " to which- 
ever one of her innumerable progeny it might be. To her 
right, filling an amj^le space in the windings of the back 
stairs, was the inexhaustible pantry which I knew, as well 
as she, we shoidd presently visit together. Though there 
could not have been in Philadelphia or anywhere quite 
such another Grandmother, even if most Philadelphians 
feel precisely the same way about theirs, she was typical 
too, like the house and the street. She belonged to the 
generation of Philadelphia w^omen who took to old age 
almost as soon as they were mothers, put on caps and large 
easy shoes, invented an elderly dress from which they 
never deviated for the rest of their lives, except to ex- 
change cashmere for silk, the everyday cap for one of 
fine lace and wider ribbons, on occasions of ceremony, and 
who as promptly forgot the world outside of their house- 



A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA 41 

hold and their family. I do not believe my Grandmother 
had an interest in anybody except her children, or in any- 
thing except their aff'airs; though this did not mean that 
she gave up society when it was to their advantage that she 
should not. In her stiff silks and costly caps, she pre- 
sided at every dinner, reception, and party given at home, 
as conscientiously as, in her sables and demure velvet 
bonnet, she made and returned calls in the season. 

oNIy other memories are of comfortable, spacious rooms, 
good, solid, old-fashioned furniture, a few more old and 
some better-forgotten new family portraits on the walls, 
the engraving of Gilbert Stuart's Washington over the 
dining-room manteli^iece, the sofa or couch in almost every 
room for the Philadelphia nap before dinner, the two 
cheerful kitchens where, if the servants were amiable, I 
sometimes j^layed, and, above all, the most enchanting 
back-yard that ever was or could be — we were not so 
elegant in those days as to call it a garden. 

IV 

Since it has been the fashion to revive everything old 
in Philadelphia, most Philadelphians are not happy until 
they have their garden, as their forefathers had, and very 
charming they often make it in the suburbs. But in town 
my admiration has been asked for gardens that would have 
been lost in my Grandfather's back-yard, and for a few- 
meagre plants springing up about a cold paved square 



42 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

that would have been condemned as weeds in his luxuriant 
flower beds. 

The kindly magnifying glasses of memory cannot con- 
vert the Spruce Street yard into a rival of Edward Ship- 
pen's garden in Second Street where the old chronicles say 
there were orchards and a herd of deer, or of Bartram's 
with its trees and plants collected from far and wide, or 
of any of the old Philadelphia gardens in the days when 
in Philadelphia no house, no public building, almost no 
church, could exist without a green space and great trees 
and many flowers about it, and when Philadelphians loved 
their gardens so well, and hated so to leave them, that there 
is the story of one at least who came back after death to 
haunt the shady walks and fragrant lawns that were fairer 
to her than the fairest Elysian Fields in the land beyond 
the grave. Much of the old beauty had gone before I was 
born, much was going as I grew from childhood to youth. 
M}^ Uncle, Charles Godfrey Leland, has described the 
Philadelphia garden of his early years, " with vines twined 
over arbours, where the magnolia, honeysuckle and rose 
spread rich perfume of summer nights, and where the 
humming bird rested, and scarlet tanager, or oriole, with 
the yellow and blue bird flitted in sunshine or in shade." 
Though I go back to days before the sparrows had driven 
away not only the worms but all others of their own race, 
I recall no orioles and scarlet tanagers, no yellow and 
blue birds. Philadelphia's one magnolia tree stood in 
front of the old Dundas house at Broad and Walnut. 



A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA 43 

All the same, my Grandfather's was a back-yard of 
enchantment. A narrow brick-paved path led past the 
kitchens ; on one side, close to the wall dividing my Grand- 
father's yard from the next door neighbour's, was a border 
of roses and Johnny- jump-ups and shrubs — the shrubs 
my Grandmother used to pick for me, crush a little in her 
fingers, and tie up in a corner of my handkerchief, which 
was the Philadelphia way — the most effective way that 
ever was — to make them give out their sweetness. Be- 
yond the kitchens, where the yard broadened into a large 
open space, the path enclosed, with a wider border of 
roses, two big grass plots which were shaded by fruit 
trees, all pink and white in the springtime. Wistaria 
hung in purple showers over the high walls. I am sure 
lilacs bloomed at the kitchen door, and a vine of Isabella 
grapes — the very name has an old Philadelphia flavour 
and fragrance — covered the verandah that ran across the 
entire second story of the back-building. If sometimes 
this delectable back-yard was cold and bare, in my 
memory it is more apt to be sweet and gay with roses, 
shrubs and Johnny- jump-ups, — summer and its pleasures 
oftener waiting on me there: probably because my visits 
to my Grandfather's were more frequent in the summer 
time. But I have vague memories of winter days, when 
the rose bushes were done up in straw, and wooden steps 
covered the marble in front, and ashes were strewn over 
the icy pavement, and snow was piled waist-high in the 
gutter. 



44 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

V 

From the verandah there was a pleasant vista, up and 
down, of the same back-yards and the same back buildings, 
just as from the front windows there was a pleasant vista, 
up and down, of the same red-brick fronts, the same white 
marble steps, the same white and green shutters, — only 
one house daring upon originality, and this was Bennett's, 
the ready-made clothes man, whose unusually large garden 
filled the oj^posite corner of Eleventh and Spruce with 
big country-like trees over to which I looked from my 
bedroom window. As a child, instinctively I got to know 
that inside every house, within sight and beyond, I would 
find the same front and back parlours, the same back- 
building dining-room, the same number of bedrooms, the 
same engraving of George Washington over the dining- 
room mantelpiece, the same big red cedar chest in the 
third story hall and, in summer, the same parlours turned 
into cool grey cellars with the same matting on the floor, 
the same linen covers on the chairs, the same curtainless 
windows and carefully closed shutters, the same white 
gauze over mirrors and chandeliers — to light upon an item 
for gauze " to cover pictures and glass " in Washington's 
household accounts while he lived in Philadelphia is one 
of the things it is worth searching the old archives for. 

Instinctively, I got to know too that, in every one of 
these well-regulated interiors where there was a little girl, 
she must, like me, be striving to be neither seen nor heard 







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BACK-YARDS, ST. PETERS SPIRE I\ THE DISTANCE 



A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA 47 

all the long morning, and sitting primly at the front win- 
dow all the long afternoon, and that, if she ever played at 
home it was, like me, with measured steps and modulated 
voice: at all times cultivating the calm of manner ex- 
pected of her when she, in her turn, would have just such a 
red brick house and just such a delectable back-yard of 
her own. Thus, while the long months at the Convent 
kept me busy cultivating every spiritual grace, during the 
occasional holiday at Eleventh and Spruce I was well 
drilled in the Philadelphia virtues. 



CHAPTER III: A CHILD IN 
PHILADELPHIA— CONTINUED 



NATURALLY, I could not live in Spruce Street 
and not believe, as every Philadelphian should 
and once did, that no other kind of a house ex- 
cept the Spruce Street house was fit for a Philadelphian to 
live in. The Philadelphian, from infancy, was convinced 
by his surroundings and bringing-up that there was but 
one way of doing things decently and respectably and that 
was the Philadelphia w^ay, nor can my prolonged exile 
relieve me from the sense of crime at times when I catch 
myself doing things not just as Philadelphians used to 
do them. 

I was safe from any such crime in my Grandfather's 
house. All Philadelphia might have been let in without 
fear. Had skeletons been concealed in the capacious cup- 
boards, they would have been of the approved Philadelphia 
pattern. ^ly Grandfather was not at all of Montaigne's 
opinion that order in the management of life is sottish, 
but looked upon it rather as " Heaven's first law." His 
day's programme was the same as in every red brick house 
with white marble steps and a back-yard full of roses and 
shrubs and Johnny- jump-ups. Everything at Eleventh 
and Spruce was done according to the same Philadelphia 

48 



A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA 49 

rules at the same hour, from the washing of the family linen 
on ^Monday, when Sunday's beef was eaten cold for dinner, 
to the washing of the front on Saturday morning, when 
Philadelphia streets from end to end were all mops and 
maids, rivers and lakes. 

AVhen my (Trandfather, with his family on their knees 
around him, began the day by reading morning prayers 
in the back-building dining-room, he could have had the 
satisfaction of knowing that every other Philadelphia 
head of a family was engaged in the same edifying duty, 
but I hope, for every other Philadelphia family's sake, 
with a trifle less awe-inspiring solenmity. After being 
present once at my Grandfather's prayers, nobody needed 
to be assured that life was earnest. 

He did not shed his solemnity when he rose from his 
knees, nor when he had finished his breakfast of scrapple 
and buckwheat cakes and left the breakfast table. He 
was as solemn in his progress through the streets to the 
Philadel2)hia Bank, at Fourth and Chestnut, of which 
he was President, and having said so much perhaps I 
might as well add his name, Thomas Robins, for in his 
day he was widely known and it is a satisfaction to remem- 
ber, as widely appreciated both in and out of Philadelphia. 
His clothes were always of the most admirable cut and 
fit and of a fashion becoming to his years, he carried a sub- 
stantial cane with a gold top, his stock was never laid aside 
for a frivolous modern cravat, his silk hat was as indis- 
pensable, and his slow walk had a dignity royalty might 



50 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

have envied. He was a handsome old man and a notice- 
ahle figure even in Philadelphia streets at the hour when 
John Welsh from the corner, and Biddies and Cad- 
walladers and Whartons and Peppers and Lewises and a 
host of other handsome old Philadelphians with good 
Philadelphia names from the near neighborhood, were 
starting downtown in clothes as irreproachable and with a 
gait no less dignified. The foreigner's idea of the Ameri- 
can is of a slouchy, free-and-easy man for ever cracking 
jokes. But slouchiness and jokes had no place in the 
dictionary or the deportment of my Grandfather and his 
contemporaries, at a period when Philadelphia supplied 
men like John Welsh for its country to send as represen- 
tatives abroad and there carry on the traditions of Frank- 
lin and John Adams and Jefferson. INIy Father — ^Edward 
Robins — inherited more than his share of this old-fashioned 
Philadelphia manner, making a ceremony of the morning 
walk to his office and the Sunday walk to church. But it 
has been lost by younger generations, more's the pity. In 
memory I would not have my Grandfather a shade less 
solemn, though at the time his solemnity put me on any- 
thing but easy terms with him. 

II 

The respectful bang of the front door upon my Grand- 
father's dignified back after breakfast was the signal for 
the family to relax. The cloth was at once cleared, my 
Grandmother and my Aimts — like all Philadelphia 






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INDEPENDENCE SQUARE AND THE STATE HOUSE 



A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA 53 

mothers and daughters — brought their work-baskets into 
the dining-room and sat and gossiped there until it was 
time for my Grandmother to go and see the butcher and 
the provision dealer, or for my Aunts to make those 
formal calls for which the morning then was the un- 
pardonable hour. 

It seems to me, in looking back, as if my Grand- 
mother could never have gone out of the house except on 
an errand to the provision man, such an important part 
did it play in her daily round of duties. She never went 
to market. That was not the Philadelphia woman's busi- 
ness, it was the Philadelphia man's. My Grandfather, at 
the time of which I write, must have grown too old for the 
task, which was no light one, for it meant getting up at 
unholy hours every Wednesday and every Saturday, leav- 
ing the rest of the family in their comfortable beds, and 
being back again in time for prayers and eight o'clock 
breakfast. I cannot say how this division of daily labour 
was brought about. The century before, a short time as 
things go in Philadelphia, it was the other way round and 
the young Philadelphia woman at her marketing was one 
of the sights strangers in the town wxre taken to see. But 
in my time it was so much the man's right that as a child 
I believed there was something essentially masculine in 
going to market, just as there was in making the mayon- 
naise for the salad at dinner. A Philadelphia man valued 
his salad too highly to trust its preparation to a woman. 
It was almost a shock to me when my Father allowed my 



54 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

motherly little Aunt to relieve him of the responsibility in 
the Spruce Street house. And later on, when he re-married 
and again lived in a house of his own, and my Step- 
Mother made a mayonnaise quite equal to his or to any 
mere man's, not even to her would he shift the early market- 
ing, — his presence in the Twelfth Street Market as essen- 
tial on Wednesday and Saturday mornings as in the Stock 
Exchange every day — and his conscientiousness was the 
more astonishing as his genius was by no means for 
domesticity. Philadelphia women respected man's duties 
and rights in domestic, as in all, matters. I remember 
an elderly Philadelphian, who was stopping at Blos- 
som's Hotel in Chester, where all Americans thirty years 
ago began their English tour, telling me the many sauces 
on the side table had looked so good she would have liked 
to try them and, on my asking her why in the world she 
had not, saying they had not been offered to her and she 
thought perhaps they were for the gentlemen. Only a 
Philadelphian among Ajnericans could have given that 
answer. 

Towards three o'clock in the Spruce Street house, my 
Grandmother would be found, her cap carefully removed, 
stretched full-length upon the sofa in the dining-room. 
The j)icture would not be complete if I left out my 
Father's rage because the dining-room was used for her 
before-dinner nap as for almost every purpose of domestic 
life by the women of the family. I have often wondered 
where he got such an un-Philadelphia idea. In every 



A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA 55 

house where there was a Grandmother, she was taking her 
nap at the same hour on the same sofa in the same dining- 
room. I could never see the harm. It was the most com- 
fortable room in the house, without the isolation of the bed- 
room or the formality of the parlours. 

At four, my Grandfather returned from his day's 
work, the family re-assembled, holding him in sufficient 
awe never to be late, and dinner was served. The hour 
was part of the leisurely life of Philadelphia as ordered 
in Spruce Street. Philadelphians had dined at four dur- 
ing a hundred years and more, and my Grandfather, who 
rarely condescended to the frivolity of change, continued 
to dine at four, as he continued to wear a stock, until the 
end of his life. It was no doubt because of the contrast 
with Convent fare that the dinner in my recollection re- 
mains the most wonderful and elaborate I have ever eaten, 
though I rack my brains in vain to recall any of its special 
features except the figs and prunes on the high dessert 
dishes, altogether the most luscious figs and prunes ever 
gi'own and dried, and the decanter at my Grandfather's 
place from which he dropped into his glass the few drops 
of brandy he drank with his water while everybody else 
drank their water undiluted. When friends came to 
dinner, I recall also the Philadelphia decanter of Madeira, 
though otherwise no greater ceremony. Dinner was al- 
ways as solemn an affair in my Grandfather's house as 
morning prayers or any act of daily life over which he 
presided, the whole house, at all times when he left it, 



56 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

relapsing into dressing-gown and slippered ease after the 
full-dress decorum his presence required of it. 

The eight o'clock tea is a more definite function in my 
memory, perhaps because the hours of waiting for it crept 
by so slowly. After dinner, the Aunts, my Father, the one 
Uncle who lived at home, vanished I never knew where, 
though no doubt Philadelphia supplied some amusement 
or occupation for the forlorn wreck four o'clock dinner 
made of the afternoon. But the interval was spent by 
my Grandfather and Grandmother at one of the front 
parlour windows, the old-fashioned Philadelphia afghan 
over their knees, their hands folded, while I, alone, my 
Sister having had the independence to vanish with the 
grown-ups, sat at the other, not daring to break the 
silence in which they looked out into the drowsy street for 
the people who seldom came and the events that never 
happened; nothing disturbing the calm of Spruce Street 
save the Sunday afternoon invasion of the colored people 
in their Sunday clothes from every near alley. It gives 
me a pang now to pass and see the window empty that 
once was always filled, in the hour before twilight, by 
those two dear grey heads. 

Ill 

As I grew a little older, I had the courage to bring a 
book to the window. It was there I read The Lam plight er 
which I confuse now with the memory of our own lamp- 








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CHRIST CHURCH INTERIOR 



A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA 59 

lighter making his rounds; and The Initials with a haughty 
Hilda for heroine — ^she must have been haughty for all 
real heroines then were; and Queechy and T'he Wide, Wide 
World and Faith Gartiiey's Girlhood, against whose senti- 
ment I am glad to say I revolted. And mixed up with 
these were INIrs. Southworth's Lost Heiress and the anony- 
mous Koutledge, light books for whose presence I cannot 
account in my Grandfather's serious house. Does any- 
body read lioutledge now? Has anybody now ever heard 
of it? What trash it was, but, after the improving ro- 
mances with a religious moral of the Convent Library, 
after Wiseman's edifying Fahiola and Newman's scholarly 
- — beyond my years — Callista, how I revelled in it, with 
what a choking throat I galloped through the love- 
sick chapters! I could recite pages of it to myself to 
relieve the dreariness of those long drives in the Third 
Street car, or the long waiting in the dreary station. To 
this day I remember the last sentence — " with his arm 
around my waist and my face hidden on his shoulder, I 
told him of the love, folly and pride that had so long kept 
me from him." Could Queechy, could Faith Gartney's 
Girlhood have been more sentimental than that? I dare 
not look up the old books to see, lest their charm as well as 
their sentiment should fade in the light of a more critical 
age. Then Scott and Dickens, IMiss Edgeworth, more 
often Holiday House, filled the hours before tea. After 
all, the old division of the day, the young generation 
would be ashamed to go back to, had its uses. 



60 OUR PHILADELPHIA 



IV 



The tea, when announced, was worth waiting, or put- 
ting down tlie most entrancing book, for. Had I my way 
I would make Philadelphia dine again at four o'clock for 
the sake of the tea — of the frizzled beef that only Phila- 
delphia ever frizzled to a turn, the smoked salmon that 
only Philadelphia ever smoked as an art, the Maryland 
biscuits that ought to be called Philadelphia biscuits for 
they were never half so good in their native land, the 
home-made preserves put up in that sunshiny kitchen 
where lilacs bloomed at the door. After all this long 
quarter of a century, the smell of beef frizzling would take 
me back to Eleventh and Spruce on a winter evening as 
straight as the fragrance of the flowering bean carries me 
to Pompeii in the early springtime, or of garlic to the little 
sunlit towns of Provence at any season of the year. The 
tea was a triumph of simplicity, but when there were guests 
it became a feast. As a rule, it was the meal to which the 
children and grandchildren who did not live in the Spruce 
Street house were invited, and loved best to be invited. 
For on these occasions my Grandmother could be relied 
upon to provide stewed oysters, the masterpiece of 
Margaret, her old grey-haired cook; and oyster cro- 
quettes from Augustine's — my Grandfather would as soon 
have begun the day without prayers as my Grandmother 
have given a feast without the help of Augustine, that 
caterer of colour who was for years supreme in Philadel- 



A CHILI) IN PHILADELPHIA 61 

phia; brandy peaches that, like the preserves, had been 
put up at home, the brandy poured in with unexpected 
lavishness for so temperate a househohl; and httle round 
cakes with white icing on top— what dear little ghosts 
from out a far past they seemed when, after a quarter 
of a century in a land where people know nothing of the 
delights of little round cakes with white icing on top, I ate 
them again at Philadelphia feasts. If the solemn, digni- 
fied Grandfather at one end of the table kept our enjoy- 
ment within the bounds of ceremony, we felt no restraint 
with the little old Grandmother who beamed upon us from 
the other, as she poured out the tea and coffee with hands 
trembling so that, in her later years, the man servant,— 
usually coloured and not to Philadelphia as yet known as 
butler or footman, — always stood close by to catch the tea 
or coffee pot when it fell, which it never did. 

V 

I recall more formal family reunions, above all the 
Golden Wedding, as impressive as a court function, the 
two old people enthroned at the far end of the front par- 
lour, the sons and daughters and grandchildren approach- 
ing in a solemn line — an embarrassed line when it came to 
the youngest, always shy in the awful presence of the 
Grandfather — and offering, each in turn, their gifts. We 
were by no means a remarkable family, to the unpre- 
judiced we may have seemed a commonplace one, my 
forefathers evidently having decided that leaving Eng- 



62 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

land for America was a feat remarkable enough to satisfy 
the ambitions of any one family and having then pro- 
ceeded to rest comfortably on their respectable laurels, but 
we took each other with great seriousness. The oldest 
Aunt, who was married and lived in New York, received 
on her annual visit to Spruce Street the homage due to a 
Princess Royal, and no King or Emperor could have 
caused more of a flutter than my Grandfather when he 
honoured one of his children with a visit. Family anni- 
versaries were scrupulously observed, the legend of family 
affection was kept up as conscientiously, whatever it cost 
us in discomfort, and there were times when we paid 
heavily. I would have run many miles to escape one Uncle 
who, when he met me in the street, would stop to ask how I 
was, and how we all were at home, and then would stand 
twisting his moustache in visible agony, trying to think 
what the affectionate intimacy between us that did not 
exist required him to say, while I thanked my stars that 
we were in the street and not in a house where he would 
have felt constrained to kiss me. We were horribly exact 
in this matter of kissing. There was a family legend of 
another Uncle from New York who once, when he came 
over for some family meeting, was so eager to do his duty 
by his nieces that he kissed not only all of them — no light 
task — but two or three neighbours' little girls into the bar- 
gain. I think, however, that every Philadelphia family 
took itself as seriously and that our scruples were not a 
monopoly brought with us from Virginia and Maryland. 



A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA 63 

In a town where family names are handed down from 
generation to generation, so that a family often will boast, 
as onrs did, not only a "Jr." but a "3d," and lose no 
o])portunity to let the world know it, family feeling is not 
likely to be allowed to wilt and die. 

Every public holiday also was a familj^ affair to be 
observed with the rigoin-s of the family feast. Christmas 
for me, when I did not celebrate it at the Convent with 
JMidnight Mass and a Creche in the chapel and kind nuns 
trying to make me forget I had not gone home like other 
little girls, took me to the Spruce Street house in time 
to look on at the succession of Uncles and Aunts who 
dropped in on Christmas Eve and went away laden witli 
bundles, and carrying in some safe pocket a collection of 
envelopes with a crisp new greenback in each, the sum 
varying from one hundred dollars to five according to the 
age of the child or grandchild whose name was on the 
envelope — my Grandfather gave with the fine patriarchal 
air he maintained in all family relations. The family 
a|3propriation of Thanksgiving Day and Washington's 
Birthday I did not grasp until after I left school, for 
while I was at the Convent they were both spent there, 
where they dwindled into insignificance compared to 
Reverend JNIother's feast and its glories. As a rule, I 
must have been at the Convent as well for the Fourth of 
July, though I retain one jubilant vision of myself and a 
bag of torpedoes in the back-yard, solemnizing a little 
celebration among the roses. And I have larger visions 



64 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

of military parades in broiling sunshine and of the City 
Troop filling the quiet streets with their gorgeousness 
which awed me long before the knowledge of their his- 
toric origin and uniform ins^iired me with reverence, 

VI 

Other duties and pleasures and observances that for 
most Philadelphia children were scattered through the 
interminable year, were crowded into my short holiday: 
visits to the dentist, to Dr. Hopkins, Dr. White's assistant, 
it being a test of Philadelphia respectability to have one's 
teeth seen to by Dr. White or one of his assistants or stu- 
dents, and the regular appointment was as much of obliga- 
tion for me as Mass on Sunday; visits to the Academy 
of Fine Arts in the old Chestnut Street building, as I 
remember set back at the end of a court that made of it a 
place apart, a consecrated place which I entered with as 
little anticipation of amusement as St. Joseph's Church 
hidden in Willing's Alley, and was the more surprised 
therefore to be entertained, as I must have been, by Benja- 
min West, for of no other painter there have I the faintest 
recollection; visits to the Academy of Natural Sciences, 
where I liked the rows upon rows of stuffed birds, and the 
strange things in bottles, and the colossal skeletons that 
filled me with the same delicious shivers as the stories of 
afreets and genii in The Arabian Nights; visits to Fair- 
mount Park, leagues away, houses left behind before it 







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A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA 67 

was reached, where the mysterious machinery of the 
Waterworks was as terrifying as the skeletons, and I 
thought it much pleasanter outside under the bhie sky; 
visits to the theatre — the most wonderful visits of all, for 
they took me out into the night that I knew only from 
stolen vigils in the Convent dormitory, or glimpses from 
the Spruce Street windoM^s. Romance was in the dimly-lit 
streets, in the stars above, in the town after dark, which 
I was warned I was never to brave alone until I can laugh 
now to think how terrified I was the first time I came home 
late by myself, in my terror jumping into a street-car 
and claiming the protection of a contemptuous young- 
woman whom work had not allowed to draw a conventional 
line between day and night. 

I have never got rid of that suggestion of romance, 
not so much in the theatre itself as in the going to it, and, 
to this day, a matinee in broad daylight will bring back a 
little of the old thrill. But nothing can bring back to any 
theatre the glitter, the brilliancy, the splendour of the old 
Chestnut, the old Walnut, the old Arch, then already 
dingy with age I have no doubt, but transfigured by my 
childhood's ecstasies in them. Nothing can persuade me 
that any plays have been, or could be, written to surpass in 
beauty, pathos and humour, Solon Shingle, and Arrah-na- 
Pogue, and Our American Cousin, and The Black Crook, 
and Ours, though I have forgotten all but their names; 
that in opera Clara Louise Kellogg ever had a rival; that 



68 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

in gaiety and wit La Grande Duchesse and La Belle 
Helene could be eclipsed; or that any actors could compete 
with Sothern and Booth and Mrs. Drew and the Daven- 
ports, and Charlotte Cushman as Meg Mernlies — there 
was a bit of good old melodramatic acting to make a small 
Convent girl's flesh creep! Shakespeare was redeemed 
by Booth from the dulness of the Convent reading-book 
and entered gloriously into my Convent life. For one 
happy winter, it was not I who led the long procession 
down to the refectory, though nobody could have sus- 
pected it, but the Ghost of Hamlet's Father, with, close 
behind me, in gloom absorbed, the Prince of Denmark, 
mistaken by the unknowing for the little girl, my friend, 
whose father, with more than the usual father's amiable 
endurance, had taken me with her and her sister to see 
the play of Hamlet during the Christmas holidays. 

The theatre has become part of the modern school 
course. If an actor like Forbes-Robertson gives a fare- 
well performance of Hamlet, or a manager like Beerbohm 
Tree produces a patriotic melodrama, or the company 
from the Theatre Frangais perform one of the rare 
classics that the young person may be taken to, I have 
seen a London theatre filled with school girls and boys. 
From what I hear I might imagine the theatre and the 
opera to be the most serious studies of every Philadelphia 
school. At the Convent I should have envied the modern 
students could I have foreseen their liberty, but they have 






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DOWN PINE STREET 



A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA 71 

more reason to envy me. The gilt has been rubbed too 
soon off their gingerbread, too soon has the tinsel of their 
theatre been tarnished. My Spartan training gave nie a 
theatre that can never cease to be a Wonderland, just as it 
endowed me with a Philadelphia that will endure, until this 
world knows me no more, as a beautiful, peaceful town 
where roses bloom in the sunny back-yards, and people live 
with dignity behind the plain red brick fronts of its long, 
straight streets. 



CHAPTER IV: AT THE CONVENT 



l4 S the theatre, in my memory, still gives the crown- 
/ \ ing glory to my holiday in Philadelj^hia, so, in 
L V looking back, the brief holiday seems the spec- 
tacle, the romance, the supreme moment, of my early years. 
The scene of my every-day life was that Convent of the 
Sacred Heart at Torresdale which was the end of the inter- 
minable ride in the Third Street horse-car and the shorter 
ride in the Pennsylvania Railroad train. 

The Philadelphian who did not live in the Convent 
would have seen it the other way round, for the Convent 
was unlike enough to Philadelphia to suggest the romance 
of the unusual. Only in one or two respects did it provide 
me with facts that every proper Philadelphian was brought 
up to know, and let me say again that because I had to 
find out the others — the more characteristically Philadel- 
phia facts — for myself, I think they probably made a 
stronger impression upon me than upon the Philadelphian 
guiltless of ever straying, or of ever having been allowed 
to stray, from the approved Philadelphia path. 

II 

When the Ladies of the Sacred Heart decided to 
open a Convent in Philadelj^hia, an uncertain enterprise 
if it is considered how un-Catholic Philadelphia was, they 

72 



AT THE CONVENT 73 

began in a fairly modest way by taking a large house at 
Torresdale, with lawns and gardens and woods and a great 
old-fashioned barn, the country seat of a Philadelphian 
whose name I have forgotten. It stood to the west of the 
railroad, at a discreet distance from the little cluster of 
houses by the riv^erside that alone meant Torresdale to the 
Philadelphians who lived in them. 

The house, I can now see, was typical as I first knew 
it, the sort the Philadelphian built for himself in the 
suburbs at a period too removed from Colonial days for 
it to have the beauty of detail and historic interest of the 
Colonial house, and yet near enough to them for dignity 
of proportion and spaciousness to be desirable, if not 
essential to a Philadelphian's comfort. A wide, lofty hall 
ran from the front door to the back, on either side were 
two large airy rooms with space between for the broad 
main stairway, a noble structure, and the carefully con- 
cealed back stairway — half-way up which in my time was 
the little infirmary window where, at half past ten every 
morning. Sister Odille dispensed pills and powders to 
those in need of them. Along the entire front of the 
house was a broad porch, — the indispensable Philadelphia 
piazza — its roof supported by a row of substantial columns 
over which roses and honeysuckle clambered fragrantly 
and luxuriantly in the June sunshine. The house was 
painted a cheerful yellow that went well with the white 
of the woodwork about the windows and the porch: not 
a very beautiful type of house, but pleasant, substantial, 



74 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

luxurious, and making as little outward show of its luxury 
as the plain red brick town house of the wealthy Phila- 
delphian. 

How comfortable a type of house it was to live in, 
I know from experience of another, not a school, within 
sight, a ten minutes' walk across the fields, and like it 
in design and arrangement and even colour, — in every- 
thing except size, — which my Father took one summer: 
to me a most memorable summer as it was the first I spent 
outside the Convent limits from the beginning to the end 
of the long holiday. The jerry-builder had had no part in 
putting up the solid, well-constructed walls which stood 
firm against winter storms and winds, and were no less a 
protection from the torrid heat of a Philadelphia summer. 
But fashion can leave architecture no more alone than 
dress. Already, the newer group of houses down by the 
Delaware were built of the brown stone which, to my 
mind, dates the beginning of the Philadelphian's fall from 
architectural grace, the beginning of his distrust in Wil- 
liam Penn's plans for his well-being and of his foolish 
hankering after the fleshpots of New York. 

The Convent, before I came to it, had been a victim 
to the brown stone fashion. With success, the pleasant old 
country house had grown too small for the school into 
which it had been converted, and a southern wing had been 
added : a long, low building with the Chapel at the far end,, 
all built in brown stone and in a style that passed for 
Gothic and that a thousand times I could have wished 




LOUDOUN, MAIN STREET GER.MANTOWN 



AT THE CONVENT 77 

based upon any other model. For the upper room in the 
win^y, ambitiously christened by somebody Gothic Hall, 
had a high pointed roof that made it an ice-house in winter 
and, for our sins, it was used as the Dormitory of the 
Sacred Heart where 1 slept. I can recall mornings when 
the water was frozen in our pitchers while the big stove, 
in the middle of the high-pitched room, burned red hot 
as if to mock at us as, with numbed fingers, we struggled 
to make our beds and wash ourselves and button and hook 
on our clothes. And the builders had so contrived that 
smnmer turned our fine Gothic Dormitory into a fiery 
furnace. How many June nights, contrary to all the rules, 
have I hung out of the little, horribly Gothic window at the 
head of my alcove, gasping in the warm darkness that was 
so sweet and stifling with the fragrance of the flowers in 
Madame Huguet's garden just below. 

I had not been long at the Convent before another 
brown stone wing extended to the north and two stories 
were added to the main building which, for the sake of 
harmony, was now painted brown from top to bottom. In 
a niche on this new facade, a statue of the Sacred Heart 
was set, and all semblance to the old country house \\as 
gone, except for the broad porch without and the well- 
proportioned rooms within. But these, and later improve- 
ments, additions and alterations cannot make me forget 
the Convent as it was when I first came to it, growing up 
about the simple, solidly-built, spacious yellow house that 
was once the Philadelphian's ideal of suburban comfort. 



78 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

and so like the house where I spent my most memorable 
summer, so like, save for the size and the colour, my Great- 
Grandfather Ambrose White's old house on the Turnpike 
at Chestnut Hill, so like innumerable other country houses 
of the same date where I visited. 

HI. 

The Convent rule and discipline could not alter the 
changing of the seasons as Philadelphia ordered them. 
They might appear to us mainly regulated by feasts and 
fasts — All Saints and All Souls, the milestones on the 
road to Christmas; Lent and the month of St. Joseph 
heralding the apj^roach of spring; the month of Mary 
and the month of the Sacred Heart, Ascension and 
Corpus-Christi, as ardent and splendid as the spring and 
summer days they graced. But, all the same, each season 
came laden with the pleasures held in common by all fortu- 
nate Philadelphia children who had the freedom of the 
country or the countrified suburbs. 

The school year began with the fall, when any night 
might bring the first frost and the first tingle in the air — 
champagne to quicken the blood in a school girl's veins, 
and make the sitting still through the long study and class 
hours a torture. The woods shone with gold ; the Virginia 
creeper flamed on the front porch; sickel pears fell, ripe 
and luscious, from the tree close to the Chapel where it was 
against the law to go and pick them up but where no law 
in the world could have barred the way; chestnuts and 



AT THE ( ONVENT 79 

hickory nuts and the wahiuts that stained my fingers black 
to open offered a substantial dessert after as substantial 
a dinner as ever children were served with. But those 
were the joyful years when hunger never could be satisfied 
and digestion was equal to any surfeit of raw chestnuts — 
or raw turnips for that matter, if the season supplied no 
lighter dainties, or of next to anything that coidd be 
picked up and eaten. I know I drew the line only at the 
huge, white, overs wee t mulberries strewing the grass by 
the swings in Mulberry Lane, that favourite scene of the 
war to the knife we waged under the name of Old jNIan and 
Bands, primitive games not to be outdone by the Tennis 
and Hockey of the more sophisticated modern school girl. 
The minute the Refectory was left for the noonday 
hour of recreation on a brisk autumn day, there was a wild 
scamper to the woods where, just beyond the gate that led 
into them, the hoary old chestnut trees spread their shade 
and dropped their fruit on either side the hill between the 
Poisonous Valley, a thrill in its deadly name, and the 
graveyard, few crosses then in the green enclosure which 
now, alas! is too well filled. The shadow of death lay so 
lightly upon us that I recall to-day only the delicious rustle 
of eager feet through the fallen leaves, and the banging of 
stone upon stone as hickory nuts cracked between them, 
I feel only the delicious pricking of the chestnut burrs 
in the happy, hardened fingers of the school girl. And 
these, anyway, are memories I share with every Philadel- 
phian who, as a child, wandered in the suburbs or the near 



80 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

country when the woods were gold and scarlet, and the way 
through them was carpeted with leaves hiding rich stores 
of nuts for the seeker after treasure. 

But no Philadelphia child in the shelter of her own 
house could know the meaning of the Philadelphia winter 
as I knew it in the Convent, half frozen in that airy dormi- 
tory of the Sacred Heart, shivering in shawl and hood 
through early Mass in the icy Chapel, still huddled in my 
shawl at my desk or scurrying as fast as discipline would 
wink at through the windy passages. The heating ar- 
rangements, somehow, never succeeded in coping with the 
extreme cold of a severe winter in the large rooms and 
halls of the new wings, and I must confess that we were 
often most miserably uncomfortable. I cannot but wonder 
what the pampered school girls of the present generation 
in the same Convent would say to such discomfort. But it 
did us no harm. Indeed, though I shiver at the memory, 
I am sure it did us good. We came out the healthier and 
hardier for it, much as the Englishman does from his cold 
house, the coldest in the world. The old conditions of a 
hardier life, that either killed or cured, did far more to 
make a vigorous people than all the new-fangled eugenics 
ever can. 

If I had little of the comfort of the Philadelphia child 
in the Philadelphia house, I shared with him the outdoor 
pleasures which winter provided by way of compensation 
— the country white under snow for weeks and weeks, 
snowballs to be made and snow houses built, sliding to be 



AT THE CONVENT 81 

had on the frozen hike, and coasting down the long hill 
just beyond the gate into the woods, when there were sleds 
to coast on. And what excitement in the marvellous snow- 
storms that have vanished with other marvels of my youth 
— the storms that put the new blizzard to shame, when the 
snow drifts were mountains high, and it took all the men 
on the farm, with Big John at their head, to clear a way 
through the near paths and roads. I recall one storm in 
particular when my Father, who had been making his 
periodical visit to my Sister and myself, left the Convent 
at six, was snowed up in his train, and never reached the 
dingy Depot in Frankford until three the next morning, 
and when for days we got out of the house only for a 
solemn ten minutes' walk each noon on the wide front 
porch, where it was a shocking breach of discipline to be 
seen at all other times except on Thursday and Sunday, 
the Convent visiting days. Of the inspiriting rigours of 
a Philadelphia winter I was never in ignorance. 

In the snow drifts and storms of winter Big John and 
his men were not more helpless than in the floods and 
slush that began with the first soft breath of the Philadel- 
phia spring. Wearing our big shapeless overshoes, we 
waded through the puddles and jumped over the streams 
in the Convent paths and roads as, in town, Philadelphia 
children, with their " gums " on, jumped over the streams 
and waded through the puddles in the abominably paved 
streets. But then hope too began when the first spaces of 
green were uncovered by the melting snow. The first 



82 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

spring-beauty in the sunny spaces of the woods, the first 
flowery frost in the orchard, the first blooming of the tulip 
trees, were among the great events of the year. And what 
joy now in the new hunt! — what treasure of spring- 
beauties everywhere in the woods as the sun grew warmer, 
of shyer, retired hepaticas, of white violets running wild 
in the swampy fields beyond the lake, of sweet trailing 
arbutus, of Jacks-in-the-pulpit flourishing best in the 
damp thickets of the Poisonous Valley into which I never 
wandered without a tremor not merely because it was a 
forbidden adventure, but because, though I passed through 
it unscathed, I had seen so often the horrible and un- 
sightly red rash one whiff" from over its bushes and trees 
could bring out on the faces and hands of my schoolmates 
with a skin more sensitive than mine. Games lost their 
charm in the spring sunshine and our one pleasure was in 
the hunt, no longer for chestnuts and walnuts and hickory 
nuts, but solely for flowers, bringing back great bunches 
wilting in our hot little hands, to place before the shrine 
that aroused the warmest fervours of our devotion or was 
tended by the nun of our special adoration. 

And before we knew it, the spring-beauties and hepa- 
ticas and white violets and Jacks-in-the-pulpit disappeared 
from the woods, and the flowery frost from the orchard, 
and the great blossoms from the tulip trees, and summer 
was upon us — blazing summer when we lay perspiring on 
our little beds up there in Gothic Hall where a few months 
before we shivered and shook, perspiration streamed from 




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ENTRANCE TO FAIRMOUNT AND THE WASHINGTON STATUE 



AT THP: convent 85 

our faces on our school books at the study hour, more a 
burden than ever as we drooped and drowsed in the heat; 
— blazing summer when the fragrance of the roses hung 
heavy over ]\ladame Huguet's garden and mingled with 
the too sweet fragrance of the honeysuckle about tlie 
columns of the porch and over every door; — blazing sum- 
mer when all day long meadows and gardens and lawns 
swooned under the pitiless sunshine and we, who had 
braved the winter cold undismayed, never put as much as 
our noses out of doors until the hour of sunset ; — blazing 
summer when for many years I saw the other girls going 
home, the gaiety of sea and mountain and change awaiting 
them, while my Sister and I stayed on, desolate at heart 
despite the efforts of the nuns to help us forget, feeling 
forlornly forsaken as we watched the green burnt up into 
brown and the summer flowers wilt and die, and the 
drought turn the roads to dust, and all Nature parched as 
we parched with it. The holiday dragged terribly and, 
reversing the usual order of things, I counted the days 
until school would begin again. However, at least I can 
say that I saw the Philadelphia summer in its full terrors 
as every Philadelphia child ever born, for whom wealth or 
chance opens no gate of escape, must see it and did see it 
of old. 

And so for me in the Convent the seasons were the 
same as for the child in Philadelphia and its suburbs. And 
I learnt how cold Philadelphia can be, and how hot^if 
Penn, safe in England, was grateful for the greater near- 



86 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

ness of his town to the sun, not a Philadelphian on the 
spot, sweltering through its midsummer heat, has ever yet 
shared his gratitude. And I learnt how beautiful Phila- 
delphia is as it grows mild again after winter has done its 
worst, or as it cools off in the friendlier autumn sun. And 
not to know these facts is not to know Philadelphia. 

IV 

In the Convent regulation of daily life lay the un- 
conquerable difference. Philadelphia has its laws and 
traditions that guide the Philadelphian through every hour 
and duty of the day, and the Philadelphian, who from the 
cradle does not obey these traditions and laws, can never be 
quite as other Philadelphians. The Sacred Heart is a 
French order, and the nuns imported their laws and tradi- 
tions from France, qualified, modified, perhaps, on the 
way, but still with an unmistakable foreign flavour and 
tendency that could not pass unquestioned in a town where 
the first article of faith is that everybody should do pre- 
cisely what everybody else does. 

I remember when the Rhodes scholars were first sent 
from America to Oxford a friend of mine professed serious 
concern for the future of the University should they intro- 
duce buckwheat cakes on Oxford breakfast tables. And, 
really, he was not as funny as he thought. A man is a good 
deal what his food makes him. The macaroni-fed Italian 
is not as the sausage-and-sauerkraut-fed German, nor the 
Hindu who thrives on rice as the Irishman bred upon 



AT THE CONVENT 87 

potatoes. Never was a town more concerned with the 
Question of Food than Philadelphia and I now see quite 
plainly that 1, beginnin(T my day at the Convent on coffee 
and rolls, could not have been as the correct Philadelphia 
child beginning the day in Philadelphia or the suburbs on 
scrapple and buckwheat cakes and maple syrup. Thus, 
the line of separation was drawn while 1 was still in short 
skirts with my hair cropped close. 

The Convent day continued, as it began, with differ- 
ences. 1 sat down at noon to the substantial French 
breakfast which at the Convent, as a partial concession to 
American ideals, became dinner. At half past three, like 
a little French girl, I had my gouter, for which even the 
French name was retained — how well I remember the big, 
napkin-lined basket, full of hunks of good gingerbread, 
or big crackers, or sweet rolls, passed round by Sister 
Duffy, probably the most generous of all generous Irish- 
women, who would have slipped an extra piece into every 
little hand if she could, but who was so shockingly cross- 
eyed that we got an idea of her as a disagreeable old thing, 
an ogress, always watching to see if we took more than our 
appointed share. Quite recently I argued it all out again 
with the few old Sisters left to greet me on my first and 
only visit to the Convent during thirty years and, purely 
for the sake of the sentiment of other days, I refused to 
believe them when they insisted that Sister Duffy, who now 
lies at peace in the little graveyard on the hillside in the 
woods, wasn't cross at all, but as tender as anv Sister who 



88 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

ever waited on hungry little girls! I would have given a 
great deal could she have come back, cross-eyes and all, 
with her big basket of gingerbread to make me feel at 
home again, as I could not in the Visitors' dining-room 
where my goiiter was set out on a neatly spread table, 
even though on one side of me was " Marie " of Our Con- 
vent Days, my friend who had been Prince of Denmark 
in our Booth-stricken period, and on the other Miss Rep- 
plier, the chronicler of our childish adventures. It was the 
first time we three had sat there together since more years 
than I am willing to count, and I think we were too con- 
scious that youth now was no longer of the company not to 
feel the sadness as keenly as the pleasure of the reunion in 
our old home. 

Gouter, with its associations, has sent me wandering 
far from the daily routine which ended, in the matter of 
meals, with a supper of meat and potatoes and I hardly 
know what, at half past six, when little Philadelphia girls 
were probably just finishing their cambric tea and bread- 
and-butter, and even the bims from Dexter's when these 
had been added as a special treat or reward. How could 
we, upon so much heavier fare, have seen things, how could 
we have looked upon life, just as those other little girls 
did? 

V 

We did not play, any more than we ate, like the child 
in Philadelphia or its suburbs. One memory of our play- 
time I have common to all Philadelphia children of my 




MAIN STREET. GERMANTOWN 



AT THE CONVENT 91 

generation: the meniorj' of Signor Blitz, on a more than 
usually blissful Reverend ]Mother's Feast, taking rabbits 
out of our hats and bowls of gold-fish out of his sleeve, and 
holding a long conversation with the immortal Bobby, the 
most prodigious puppet that ever conversed with any pro- 
fessional ventriloquist. But this was a rare ecstasy never 
repeated. 

What games the children in Rittenhouse Square and 
the Lanes of Germantown had, I cannot record, but of 
one thing I am sure: they did not go to the tune and the 
words of " Sur le pont d' Avignon," or " Qu' est-ce qui 
passe ici si tard," or '' II etait un avocat" Nor, I fancy, 
were " Malbrough s'en va-t'en guerre " and " An clair de la 
lune, moil ami Pierrot" the songs heard in the Philadel- 
phia nursery. Nor is it likely that " C'est le mois de 
Marie," which we sang as lustily all through May as the 
devout in France sing it in every church and every ca- 
thedral from one end of their land to the other, was the 
canticle of pious little Catholic children celebrating the 
month of Mary at St. Joseph's or St. Patrick's. Nor 
outside the Convent could the Bishop on his pastoral 
rounds have been welcomed with the " Vive! Vive! Vive! 
Monseigneur au Sacre Coeur, Quel Bonheur! " which, the 
title appropriately changed, was our form of welcome to 
every distinguished visitor. And, singing these songs and 
canticles, how could the associations and memories we were 
laying up for ourselves be the same as those of Philadelphia 
children whose ears and voices were trained on " Juanita " 



92 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

and " Listen to the Mocking Bird," or, it may be, " jNIarch- 
ing through Georgia " and " Way down upon the Swanee 
River"? These things may make subtle distinctions, but 
they are distinctions that can never be overcome or out- 
grown. 

In study hours, as in playtime and at meals, we were 
seldom long out of this French atmosphere. French class 
was only shorter than English. If we were permitted to 
talk at breakfast, it was not at all that we might amuse 
ourselves, but that we might practise our French which 
did not amuse us in the least. Many of the nuns were 
French, often, it is true, French from Louisiana or Canada, 
but their English was not one bit more fluent on that 
account. Altogether, there was less of Philadelphia than 
of France in the discipline, the devotions, and the relaxa- 
tions of the Convent. 

VI 

But, of all the differences, the most fundamental, I 
think, came from the fact that the Convent was a Convent 
and taught us to accept the conventual, the monastic inter- 
pretation of life. We were there in, not only a French, but 
a cloistered atmosphere — the atmosphere that Philadel- 
phia least of all towns could understand. The Friends had 
attained to peace and unworldliness by staying in their own 
homes and fulfilling their duty as fathers and mothers of 
families, as men and women of business. But the nims 



AT THP: convent 93 

saw no way to achieve this end except by shutting them- 
selves out of the world and avoiding its temptations. The 
Ladies of the Sacred Heart are cloistered. They leave the 
Convent grounds only to journey from one of their houses 
to another, for care is taken that they do not, by staying 
over long in one school, form too strong an attachment to 
place or person. Where would be the use of being a nun 
if you were not made to understand the value of sacrifice? 
Their pupils are, for the time, as strictly cloistered. Not 
for us were the walks abroad by which most girls at board- 
ing school keep up with the times — or get ahead of them. 
We were as closely confined to the Convent grounds as the 
nuns, except during the holidays or when a friend or rela- 
tion begged for us a special outing. It was not a confine- 
ment depending on high stone walls and big gates with 
clanging iron chains and bars. But the wood fences run- 
ning with the board walk above the railroad and about the 
woods and the fields and the gardens made us no less 
prisoners — willing and happy prisoners as we might be, 
and were. This gave us, or gave me at any rate, a curious 
idea of the Convent as a place entirely apart, a place that 
had nothing to do with the near town or the suburb in 
which it stood — a blessed oasis in the sad wilderness of the 
world. 

There is no question that, as a result, I felt myself 
in anticipation a stranger in the wilderness into which I 
knew I must one day go from the oasis, and in which I used 



94 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

to imagine I should be as much of an exile as the Children 
of Israel in the desert. Of course I was not quite that 
when the time came, but that for an interval I was con- 
vinced I must be explains how unlike in atmosphere the 
Convent was to Eleventh and Spruce. 

In all sorts of little ways I was confirmed in this belief 
by life and its duties at the Convent. For all that con- 
cerned me nearly, for all that was essential to existence 
here below, Philadelphia seemed to me as remote as Tim- 
buctoo. I got insensibly to think of myself first not as 
a Philadelphian, not as an American, but as a " Child of 
the Sacred Heart," — the first question under all circum- 
stances was what I should do, not as a Philadelphian, but 
as a Child of the Sacred Heart. 

I cannot say how much the mere name of the thing 
represented — the honour and the privilege — and there was 
not a girl who had been for any time a pupil who did not 
prize it as I did. And we were not given the chance to 
forget or belittle it. We were impressed with the impor- 
tance of showing our appreciation of the distinction Provi- 
dence had reserved for us — of showing it not merely by 
our increased faith and devotion, but by our bearing and 
conduct. We might be slack about our lessons. That 
was all right at a period when slackness prevailed in girls' 
schools and it was unfeminine, if not unladylike, to be too 
learned. But we were not let off from the diligent cultiva- 
tion of our manners. Our faith and devotion were 
attended to in a daily half hour of religious instruction. 







^^'^.V'.A 



ARCH STREET MEETING 



AT THE CONVENT 97 

But Sunday was not too holy a day for the Politeness 
Class that was held every week as surely as Sunday came 
round, in which we were taught all the mysteries of a 
Deportment that might have given tips to the great Tur- 
veydrop himself, — ^how to sit, how to walk, how to carry 
ourselves under all circumstances, how to pick up a hand- 
kerchief a passer-by might drop — ^an unspeakable martyr- 
dom of a class when each unfortunate student, in turn, went 
through her paces with the eyes of all the school upon her 
and to the sound of the stifled giggles of the boldest. We 
never met one of our mistresses in the corridors that we 
did not drop a laboured curtsey — a shy, deplorably awk- 
ward curtsey when I met the Reverend Mother, Mother 
Boudreau, a large, portly, dignified nun from Louisiana 
and a model of deportment, who inspired me with a re- 
spectful fear I never have had for any other mortal. We 
could not answer a plain " Yes " or " No " to our mis- 
tresses, but the " Madam " must always politely follow. 
" Remember " was a frequent warning, " remember that 
wherever, or with whom, you may be, to behave like chil- 
dren of the Sacred Heart ! " A Child of the Sacred Heart, 
we were often told, should be known by her manners. And 
so impressed were we with this precept that I remember a 
half-witted, but harmless, elderly woman whom the nuns, 
in their goodness, had kept on as a " parlour boarder " 
after her school days were over, telling us solemnly that 
when she was in New York and went out shopping with 
her sister, the young men behind the counter at Stewart's 



98 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

would all look at her with admiring eyes and whisper to 
each other, " Is it not easy to see that ]Miss C. is a Child 
of the Sacred Heart? " 

Seriously, the training did give something that nothing 
else could, and an admirable training it was for which girls 
to-day might exchange more than one brain-bewildering 
course at College and be none the worse for it. In my own 
case, I admit, I should not mind having had more of the 
other training, as it has turned out that my work in life 
is of the sort where a quick intelligence counts for more 
than an elegant deportment. But I can find no fault with 
the Convent for neglect. Girls then were not educated 
to work. If you had asked any girl anywhere what was 
woman's mission, she would have answered promptly — 
had she been truthful — " to find a husband as soon as 
possible;" if she were a Convent girl, — a Child of the 
Sacred Heart — she would have added, " or else to become 
a nun." Her own struggles to fit herself for any other 
career the inconsiderate Fates might drive her into, so 
far from doing her any harm, were the healthiest and most 
bracing of tonics. Granted an average mind, she could 
teach herself through necessity just the important things 
school could not teach her through a routine she didn't see 
the use of. She emerged from the ordeal not only heroi- 
cally but successfully, which was more to the point. A 
yoimg graduate from Bryn Mawr said to me some few days 
ago that when she looked at her mother and the women 




THE TRAIN SHED, BROAD STREET STATION 



AT THE CONVENT 101 

of her mother's generation and realized all they had accom- 
plished without what is now called education, she wondered 
whether the girls of her generation, who had the benefit of 
all the excess of education going, would or could accom- 
plish more, or as much. To tell the truth, I wonder my- 
self. But then it may be said that I, belonging to that 
older generation, am naturally prejudiced. 

VII 

There are moments when, reflecting on all I lost as a 
Philadelphian, I am half tempted to regret my long years 
of seclusion, busy about my soul and my manners, at the 
Convent. A year or so would not have much mattered one 
way or the other. I led, however, no other life save the 
Convent life until I was seventeen. I knew no other 
standpoint save the Convent standpoint. 

But the temptation to regret flies as quickly as it 
comes. I loved the life too well at the time, I love it too 
well in the retrospect, to have wanted then, or to want now, 
to do without it. It was a happy life to live, though I 
would not have been a school girl had I not, with the school 
girl's joy in the morbid, liked nothing better than to pose 
as the unhappiest of mortals — to be a school girl was to 
be misunderstood I would have vowed, had I, in my safe 
oasis, ever heard the expression or had the knowledge to 
guess at its meaning. I loved every stone in the house, 
brown and ugly as every stone might be, I loved every 



102 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

tree in the woods whether or no it dropped pleasant things 
to devour, I loved every hour of the day whatever might 
be its task. I had a quick memory, study was no great 
trouble to me, and I enjoyed every class and recitation. 
I enjoyed getting into mischief — I wore once only the 
Ribbon for Good Conduct — and I enjoyed being pun- 
ished for it. In a word, I got a good deal out of my life, 
if it was not exactly what a girl was sent to school to get. 
And it is as happy a life to remember, with many pictu- 
resque graces and absurdities, joys and sorrows, that an 
uninterrupted existence at Eleventh and Spruce could not 
have given. 

I have no desire to talk sentimental nonsense about 
my school days having been my happiest. That sort of 
talk is usually twaddle. It was not as school that I loved 
the Convent, though as school it had its unrivalled attrac- 
tions ; it was as home. When the time came to go from it 
I suffered that sharp pang felt by most girls on leaving 
home for school. I remember how I, who affected a sub- 
lime scorn for the cry-baby, blubbered like one myself 
when I was faced with the immediate prospect of life in 
Philadelphia. How well I recall my despair — how vividly 
I see the foolish scene I made in the empty Refectory, 
shadowy in the dusk of the June evening, where I was 
rehearsing the valedictory of the Graduating Class which 
I had been chosen to recite, and where, after the first few 
lines I broke down to my shame, and sniffled and gurgled 
and sobbed in the lap of the beloved mistress who was 



AT THE CONVENT 103 

doing her best to comfort ine, and also to keep nie from 
disgracing her, as I should have done by any such scene on 
the great day itself. 

If the Convent stands for so much in my memory, it 
would be ungrateful to regret the years I spent in it. The 
sole reason would be my loss, not as a student, but as a 
Philadelphian, for this loss was the price I paid. But the 
older I grow, the better I realize that to the loss I owe an 
immeasurable gain. For as a child I never got so accus- 
tomed to Philadelphia as not to see it at all. The thing 
we know too well is often the thing we see least clearly, or 
we should not need the philosopher to remind us that that 
is best which nearest lieth. All through my childhood and 
early youth I saw Philadelphia chiefly from the outside, 
and so saw it with more awe and wonder and lasting de- 
light than those Philadelphians who, in childhood and 
early youth, saw it only from the inside, — too near for 
it to come together into the picture that tells. 



CHAPTER V: TRANSITIONAL 

I 

1^ ND so it was with a great fear in my heart that, 
/ \ in the course of time and after I had learned as 
1 m. httle as it was decent for Philadelphia girls to 
learn in the days before Bryn Mawr, I left the Convent 
altogetlier for Philadelphia. I can smile now in recalling 
the old fear, but it was no smiling matter at seventeen: a 
weeping matter rather, and many were the tears I shed in 
secret over the prospect before me. My holidays had not 
revealed Philadelphia to me as a place of evil and many 
dangers. But as I was to live there, it represented the 
world, — the sinful world, worse, the unknown world, to 
battle with whose temptations my life and training at the 
Convent had been the preparation. 

It added to the danger that sin could wear so peaceful 
an aspect and temptation keep so comfortably out of 
sight. During an interval, longer than I cared to have it, 
for I did not " come out " at once as a Philadelphia girl 
should and at the Convent I had made few Philadelphia 
friends, my personal knowledge of Philadelphia did not 
go much deeper than its house fronts. For the most part 
they bore the closest family resemblance to those of 
Eleventh and Spruce, with the same suggestion of order 
and repose in their well-washed marble steps and neatly- 

104 




>^-- 









•nk •*■; 






^& . [I 

ST PETER'S, INTERIOR 




TRANSITIONAL 107 

di-awn blinds. jNIy Father had then moved to Third 
Street near Sjn-uce, and there rented a red brick house, one- 
half, or one-third, the size of my Grandfather's, but very 
like it in every other way, to the roses in the tiny back- 
yard and to the daily family routine except that, with a 
courageous defiance of tradition I do not know how we 
came by, we dined at the new dinner hour of six and said 
our prayers in the privacy of our bedrooms. The Stock 
Exchange was only a minute away, and yet, at our end. 
Third Street had not lost its character as a respectable 
residential street. We had for neighbours old JNIiss Grelaud 
and the Bullitts and, round the corner in Fourth Street, 
the Wisters and Bories and Schaumbergs,— with what 
bated breath Philadelphia talked of the beauty and talents 
of ^Miss Emily Schaumberg, as she still was! — and many 
other Philadelphia families who had never lived any- 
where else. Life went on as silently and placidly and 
regularly as at the Convent. I seemed merely to have 
exchanged one sort of monastic peace for another and the 
loudest sound I ever heard, the jingling of my old friend 
the horse-car, was not so loud as to disturb it. 

If I walked up Spruce Street, or as far as Pine and up 
Pine, silence and peace enfolded me. Peace breathed, 
exuded from the red brick houses with their white marble 
steps, their white shutters below and green above, their 
pleasant line of trees shading the red brick pavement. 
The occasional brown stone front broke the uniformity 
with such brutal discord that I might have imagined the 



108 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

devil I knew was waiting for me somewhere lurked behind 
it, and have seen in its pretentious aping of New York 
fashion the sin in which Philadelphia, as the Sinful World, 
must abound. I cannot say why it seemed to me, and still 
seems, so odious, for there were other interruptions to the 
monotony I delighted in — the beautiful open spaces and 
great trees about the Pennsylvania Hospital and St. 
Peter's; the old Mint which, with its severe classical facade, 
seemed to reproach the frivolity of the Chestnut Street 
store windows on every side of it; General Paterson's 
square grey house with long high-walled garden at Thir- 
teenth and Locust; the big yellow Dundas house at Broad 
and Walnut, with its green enclosure and the magnolia 
for whose blossoming I learnt to watch with the coming 
of spring; that other garden with wide-spreading trees 
opposite my Grandfather's at Eleventh and Spruce: old 
friends these quickly grew to be, kindly landmarks on the 
way when I took the walks that were so solitary in those 
early days, through streets where it was seldom I met 
anybody I knew, for the Convent had made me a good 
deal of a stranger in my native town, — where it was seldom, 
indeed, I met anybody at all. 

II 

When I went out, I usually turned in the direction of 
Spruce and Pine, for to turn in the other, towards Walnut, 
was to be at once in the business part of the town where 
Philadelphia women preferred not to be seen, having no 









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THE PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL FROM PINE STREET 



TRANSITIONAL 111 

desire to bridge over the wide gulf of propriety that then 
yawned between the sex and business. Except for the 
character of the buildings and the signs at the doors, I 
might not have been conscious of the embarrassing differ- 
ence between this and my more familiar haunts. Bankers' 
and stock-brokers' offices were on every side, but the 
Third Street car did not jingle any louder as it passed, 
my way was not more crowded, peace still enveloped me. 
I gathered from my Father, who was a broker, that the 
Stock Exchange, when buying and selling had to be done 
on the spot and not by telephone as in our degenerate days, 
was now and then a scene of animation, and it might be of 
noise and disorder, more especially at Christmas, when a 
brisker business was done in penny whistles and trumpets 
than in stocks and shares. But the animation overflowed 
into Third Street only at moments of panic, to us welcome 
as moments of prosperity for they kept my Father busy — 
we thrived on panics— and then, once or twice, I saw staid 
Philadelphians come as near running as I ever knew them 
to in the open street. 

Now and then youth got the better of me and I sought 
adventure in the unadventurous monotony of Walnut 
Street where the lawyers had their offices, the courts not 
having as yet migrated up to Broad Street. It was usually 
lost in heavy legal slumber and if my intrusion was bold, 
at least nobody was about to resent it. Nor could there 
be a doubt of the eminent respectabihty into which I in- 
truded. The recommendation to Philadelphia of its 



112 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

lawyers was not the high esteem in which they were held 
throughout the country, but their social standing at home 
— family gave distinction to the law, not the law to family. 
Approved Philadelphia names adorned the signs at almost 
every office door and not for some years was the evil day 
to dawn when the well-known Philadelphia families who 
inherited the right of the law would be forced to fight 
for it with the alien and the Jew. For me, I think I am at 
an age when I may own that the irreproachable names on 
the signs were not the principal attraction. Sometimes, 
from one of the somnolent offices, a friendly figure would 
step into the somnolent street to lighten me on my way, 
and it was pleasanter to walk up Walnut in company than 
alone. When I went back the other day, after many years 
and many changes for Philadelphia and myself, I found 
most of the familiar signs gone, but at one door I was met 
by a welcome ghost — but, was it the ghost of that friendly 
figure or of my lonely youth grasping at romance or its 
shadow? How many years must pass, how many experi- 
ences be gone through, before a question like that can be 
asked ! 

If I followed Third Street beyond Walnut to Chest- 
nut, I was in the region of great banks and trust companies 
and newspaper offices and the old State House and the 
courts. I had not had the experience, or the training, to 
realize what architectural monstrosities most of the new, big, 
heavy stone buildings were, nor the curiosity to investigate 
what went on inside of them, but after the quiet red brick 



TRANSITIONAL 113 

houses they seemed to have business written all over them 
and the street, compared to Spruce and Walnut, appeared 
to my unsophisticated eyes so thronged that I did not have 
to be told it was no place for me. It was plain that most 
women felt as I did, so careful were they to efface them- 
selves. I remember meeting but few on Chestnut Street 
below Eighth until ]\lr. Childs began to devote his leisure 
moments and loose change to the innocent amusement of 
presenting a cup and saucer to every woman who would 
come to get it, and as most women in Philadelphia, or out 
of it, are eager to grab anything they do not have to pay 
for, many visited him in the Ledger office at Sixth and 
Chestnut. 

As I shrank from doing what no other woman did, and, 
as the business end of Chestnut Street did not offer me the 
same temptation as Walnut, I never got to know it well, — 
in fact I got to know it so little that my ignorance would 
seem extraordinary in anybody save a Philadelphian, and 
it remained as strange to me as the street of a foreign town. 
I could not have said just where my Grandfather's Bank 
was, not once during that period did I set my foot across 
the threshold of the State House, unwilling as I am to con- 
fess it. But perhaps I might as well make a full confession 
while I am about it, for the truth will have to come out 
sooner or later. Let me say then, disgraceful as I feel it 
to be, that though I spent two years at least in the Third 
Street house, with so much of the beauty of Philadelphia's 
beautiful past at my door, it was not until some time after- 



114 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

wards, when we had gone to live up at Thirteenth and 
Spruce, that I began to appreciate the beauty as well as 
my folly in not having appreciated it sooner. St. Peter's 
Church and the Pennsylvania Hospital I could not ignore, 
many of my walks leading me past them. But I was 
several years older before I saw Christ Church, inside or 
out. The existence of the old Second Street Market was 
unknown to me ; had I been asked I no doubt would have 
said that the Old Swedes Church was miles off; I was 
unconscious that I was surrounded by houses of Colonial 
date; I was blind to the meaning and dignity of great 
gables turned to the street, and stately Eighteenth Cen- 
tury doorways, and dormer windows, and old ironwork, 
and a patchwork of red and black brick ; I was indifferent 
to the interest these things might have given to every step 
I took at a time when, too often, every step seemed for- 
lornly barren of interest or its possibility. Into the old 
Philadelphia Library on Fifth Street I did penetrate once 
or twice, and once or twice sat in its quiet secluded alcoves 
dipping into musty volumes : a mere accident it must have 
been, my daily reading being provided for at the easy- 
going, friendly, pleasantly dingy, much more modern 
Mercantile Library in Tenth Street. But the memory 
of these visits, few as they were, is one of the strongest 
my Third Street days have left with me, and I think, or 
I hope, I must have felt the charm of the old town if I 
mav not have realized that I did, for I can never look back 



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SECOND STREET MARKET 



TRANSITIONAL 117 

to myself as I was then without seeing it as the background 
to all my comings and goings— a background that lends 
colour to my colourless life. 

Ill 

I can understand my ignorance and blindness and in- 
difference, if I cannot forgive them. All my long eleven 
years at the Convent I had had the virtue of obedience duly 
impressed upon me, and, though there custom led me easily 
into the temptation of disobedience, when I returned to 
Philadelphia I was at first too frightened and bewildered 
to defy Philadelphia's laws written and especially un- 
written, for in these I was immediately concerned. I was 
the more bewildered because I had come away from the 
Convent comfortably convinced of my own importance, 
and it was disconcerting to discover that Philadelphia, so 
far from sharing the conviction, dismissed me as a person of 
no importance whatever. I had also my natural indolence 
and moral cowardice to reckon with. I have never been 
given to taking the initiative when I can avoid it and it is 
one of my great grievances that, good and thorough Ameri- 
can as I am, I should have been denied my rightful share 
of American go. Anyway, I did not have to stay long in 
Philadelphia to learn for myself that the Philadelphia 
law of laws obliged every Philadelphian to do as every 
other Philadelphian did, and that every Philadelphian 
was too much occupied in evading what was not the thing 
in the present to bother to cultivate a sentiment for the 



118 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

past. Moreover, I had to contend against what the Phila- 
delphians love to call the Philadelphia inertia, while all the 
time they talk about it they keep giving substantial proofs 
of how little reason there is for the talk. The Philadelphia 
inertia only means that it is not good form in Philadelphia 
to betray emotion on any occasion or under any circum- 
stance. The coolness, or indifference, of Philadelphians 
at moments and crises of great passion and excitement has 
always astonished the outsider. If you do not understand 
the Philadelphia way, as I did not then, you take the Phila- 
delphian's talk literally and believe the beautiful Philadel- 
phia calm to be more than surface deep, as I did who had 
not the sense as yet to see that, even if this inertia was 
real, it was my business to get the better of it and to de- 
velop for myself the energy I imagined my town and its 
people to be without. I have often thought that the Phila- 
delphia calm is a little like the London climate that either 
conquers you or leaves you the stronger for having con- 
quered it. 

IV 

If one of Philadelphia's unwritten laws closed my eyes 
to what was most worth looking at when I took my walks 
abroad, another, no less stringent, limited those walks to a 
small section of the town. On the map Philadelphia might 
stretch over a vast area with the possibility of spreading 
indefinitely, but for social purposes it was shut in to the 
East and the West by the Delaware and the Schuylkill, 



TRANSITIONAL 119 

to the North and the South by a single line of the old 
rhyming list of the streets: "Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce 
and Pine." I have not the antiquarian knowledge to say 
who drew that rigid line, or when what had })een all right 
for Washington and Provosts of the University and no 
end of distinguished people became all wrong for ordinary 
mortals — I have heard the line ridiculed, but never ex- 
plained. No geographical boundary has been, or could be, 
more arbitrary, but there it was, there it is, and the Phila- 
delphian who crosses it risks his good name. Nor can the 
stranger, though unwarned, disregard it with impunity. 
I remember when I met Mrs. Alexander Gilchrist, the 
first friend I made in London, and she told me the number 
of the house away out North Twenty-second Street where 
she lived for two years in Philadelphia, I had a moment of 
Philadelphia uncertainty as to whether her literary dis- 
tinction could outbalance her social indiscretion. Phila- 
delphia never had a doubt, but was serenely unconscious of 
her presence during her two years there. And yet she had 
then edited and published, with the help of the Rossettis, 
her husband's Life of Blake which had brought her fame 
in England, and her up-town house must have been one 
of the most interesting to visit. Walt Whitman was a 
daily guest and few American men of letters passed 
through Philadelphia without finding their way to it. 
Philadelphia, however, would scruple going to Heaven 
were Heaven north of INIarket Street. 

It is an absurd prejudice, but I am not sure if I have 



120 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

got rid of it now or if I ever shall get rid of it, and when 
I was too young to see its absurdity I would as soon have 
questioned the infallibility of the Pope. It was decreed 
that nobody should go north of Market or south of Pine; 
therefore I must not go; the reason, probably, why I never 
went to Christ Church — a pew had not been in my family 
for generations to excuse my presence in North Second 
Street — why I never, even by accident, passed the Old 
Swedes or the Second Street Market. It was bad enough 
to cross the line when I could not help myself. I am 
amused now — though my sensitive youth found no amuse- 
ment in it — when I think of my annoyance because my 
Great-Grandfather, on my Mother's side, old Ambrose 
White whose summer home was in Chestnut Hill, lived not 
many blocks from the Meeting House and the Christ 
Church Burial Ground where Franklin lies, in one of those 
fine old Arch Street houses in which Friends had lived for 
generations since there had been Arch Street houses to live 
in. Besides, Mass and Vespers in the Cathedral led me to 
Logan Square, to my dismay that religion should lead 
where it was as much as my reputation was worth to be 
met. I have wondered since if it was as compromising 
for the Philadelphian from north of Market Street to be 
found in Rittenhouse Square. 

Outwardly I could see no startling difference between 
the forbidden Philadelphia and my Philadelphia — " there 
is not such great odds, Brother Toby, betwixt good and 
evil as the world imagines," I might have said with Mr. 



.\ tf^ >^> --'v 



'"^i',„#t"" 




in 



FOURTH AND ARCH STREETS MEETING HOUSE 



TRANSITI(3NAL 123 

Shandy had I known that Mr. Shandy said it or that there 
was a JNIr. Shandy to say anything so wise. The Phila- 
delphia rows of red hriek honses, white marble steps, white 
shutters below and green above, rows of trees shading 
them, were much the same north of INIarket Street and 
south of Pine, except that south of Pine the red brick 
houses shrank and the white marble and white shutters 
grew shabby, and north of ^larket their uniformity was 
more often broken by brown stone fronts which, together 
with the greater width of many of the streets, gave a 
richer and more prosperous air than we could boast down 
our way. But it was not for Philadelphians, of all people, 
to question why, and it must have been two or three years 
later, when I was less awed by Philadelphia, that I went 
up town of my own free will and out of sheer defiance. 
I can remember the time when an innocent visit to so harm- 
less a place as Girard College appeared to me in the light 
of outrageous daring. That is the way in my generation 
we were taught and learned our duty in Philadelphia. 

My excursions to the suburbs, except to Torresdale, 
were few, which was my loss for no other town's suburbs 
are more beautiful, and they were not on Philadelphia's 
Index. Time and the alien had not yet driven the Phila- 
delphian out to the Main Line as an alternative to " Chest- 
nut, Walnut, Spruce and Pine," but many had country 
houses there; Germantown was popular. Chestnut Hill 
and Torresdale were beyond reproach. My Father, how- 
ever, who cultivated most of Philadelphia's prejudices. 



124 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

was unexpectedly heterodox in this particular. He could 
not stand the suburbs — poor man, he came to spending 
suburban summers in the end — and of them all he held 
Germantown most sweepingly in disfavour. I cannot 
remember that he gave a reason for his dislike. It may be 
that its grej'-stone houses offended him as an infidelity to 
Philadelphia's red brick austerity. But he could never 
speak of it with patience and from him I got the idea that 
it was the abyss of the undesirable. One of the biggest 
surprises of my life was, when I came to look at it with 
my own eyes, to find it as desirable a place as beauty and 
history can make. 

V 

The shopping I had not the money to do would have 
kept me within a more exclusive radius, for a shopping 
expedition restricted the Philadelphian who had any re- 
spect for herself to Chestnut Street between Eighth and 
Fifteenth. Probably I was almost the only Philadelphian 
who knew there were plenty of cheap stores in Second 
Street, but that I bought the first silk dress I ever possessed 
there was one of the little indiscretions I had the sense to 
keep to myself. A bargain in Eighth Street might be dis- 
closed as a clever achievement, if not repeated too often. 
The old Philadelphia name and the historic record of 
Lippincott's, for generations among the most successful 
Philadelphia publishers, would have permitted a periodi- 
cal excursion into Market Street, even if unlimited latitude. 



TRANSITIONAL 125 

anyway, had not been granted to wholesale houses in the 
choice of a street. The well-known reliability of Straw- 
bridge and Clothier might warrant certain purchases up- 
town and a furniture dealer as reliable, whose name and 
address I regret have escaped me, sanction the house- 
keeper's penetrating still fiu-ther north. But it was safer, 
everj'ihing considered, to keep to Chestnut Street, and on 
Chestnut Street to stores approved by long patronage — 
you were hall-marked " common " if you did not, and the 
wrong name on the inside of your hat or under the flap of 
your envelope might be your social undoing. The self- 
respecting Philadelphian would not have bought her 
needles and cotton anywhere save at Mustin's, her ribbons 
anywhere save at Allen's. She would have scorned the 
visiting card not engraved by Dreka. She would have 
gone exclusively to Bailey's or Caldwell's for her jewels 
and silver; to Darlington's or Homer and CoUaday's for 
her gloves and dresses; to Sheppard's for her linen; to 
Porter and Coates, after Lippincott's, for her books; to 
Earle's for her pictures ; — prints were such an exotic taste 
that Gebbie and Barrie could afford to hide in Walnut 
Street, and the collector of books such a rarity that Tenth, 
or was it Ninth? was as good as any other street for the old 
book store where I had so unpleasant an experience that I 
could not well forget it though I have forgotten its pro- 
prietor's name. A sign in the window said that old books 
were bought, and one day, my purse as usual empty but 
my heart full of hope, I carried there two black-bound, 



126 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

gilt-edged French books of the kind nobody dreams of 
reading that I had brought home triumphantly as prizes 
from the Convent : but I and my poor treasures were dis- 
missed with such contempt and ridicule that my spirit was 
broken and I could not summon up pluck to carry them 
to Leary's, in Ninth Street, who were more liberal even 
than Charles Lamb in their definition, and to whom any- 
thing printed and bound was a book to be bought and sold. 
If hunger overtook the shopper, she would have eaten 
her oyster stew only at Jones's on Eleventh Street or 
Btirns's on Fifteenth; or if the heat exhausted her, she 
would have cooled oiF on ice-cream only at Sautter's or 
Dexter's, on soda-water only at Wyeth's or Hubbell's. 
The hoiu-s for shopping were as circumscribed as the dis- 
trict. To be seen on Chestnut Street late in the afternoon, 
if not unpardonable, was certainly not quite the thing. 

VI 

Shopping without money had no charm and could never 
help to dispose of my interminable hours. The placid 
beauty of the shopless streets was of a kind to appeal more 
to age than youth. I wonder to this day at the time I 
allowed to pass before I shook off my respect for Phila- 
delphia conventions sufficiently to relieve the dulness of 
my life by straying from the Philadelphia beaten track. 
The most daring break at first was a stroll on Sunday 
afternoon over to West Philadelphia and to Woodland's. 
Later, when, with a friend, I went on long tramps through 




JOHNSON HOUSE, GERMANTOWN 



TRANSITIONAL 129 

the Park, by the Wissahickon, to Chestnut Hill, it was 
looked upon as no less unladylike on our part than the 
new generation's cigarette and demand for the vote on 
theirs. Eut if I did my duty, I was sadly bored by it. 
Often I turned homeward with that cruel aching of the 
heart the young know so well, longing for something, any- 
thing, to happen on the way to interrupt, to disorganize, 
to shatter to pieces the daily routine of life. I still shrink 
from the sharp pain of those cool, splendid October days 
when Philadelphia was aglow and quiveringly alive, and 
with every breath of the brisk air came the desire to be up 
and away and doing — but away where in Philadelphia? — 
doing what in Philadelphia ? I still shrink from the sharp 
pain of the first langourous days of spring when every 
Philadelphia back-yard w^as full of perfume and every 
Philadelphia street a golden green avenue leading direct 
to happiness could I have found the way along its be- 
wildering straightness. 

If youth only knew! There was everywhere to go, 
everything to do, every happiness to claim. Philadelphia 
waited, the Promised Land of action and romance, had I 
not been hide-bound by Philadelphia conventions, ab- 
sorbed in Philadelphia ideals, disdaining all others with the 
intolerance of my years. According to these conventions 
and ideals, there was but one adventure for the Philadel- 
phia girl who had finished her education and arrived at the 
appointed age — the social adventure of coming out. 



CHAPTER VI : THE SOCIAL ADVENTURE 

I 

LET me say at once that I know no adventure is more 
important for the Philadelphian, and that mine 
/ was scarcely worth the name as these things go 
in Philadelphia. 

It is the one adventure that should be roses all the way, 
but for me it was next to no roses at all. To begin with, 
I was poor. My Father had lost his money in the years of 
upheaval following the Civil War and had never got it 
back again. Nowadays this would not matter. A girl 
of seventeen, when she comes home from school, can turn 
round, find something to do, and support herself. She 
could in the old days too, if she was thrown on her own 
resources. I had friends no older than myself who taught, 
or were in the Mint — that harbour of refuge for the young 
or old Philadelphia lady in reduced circumstances. But 
my trouble was that I was not supposed to be thrown on 
my own resources. A Philadelphia father would have felt 
the social structure totter had he permitted his daughter 
to work as long as he was alive to work for her. When he 
had many daughters and luck went against him, the ad- 
vantage of this attitude was less obvious to them than to 
him. Exemplary as was the theory, which I applaud my 
Father for acting up to since it happened to be his, it had 

130 




THE CUSTOMS HOUSE 



THE SOCIAL ADVENTURE 133 

its inconvenience when put into practice. To be guarded 
from the hardship of hd)our by the devoted father did not 
always put money into the daughter's pocket. 

Had I been more at home in Philadelphia, my poverty 
might not have stood so much in my light. A hundred 
years before Gouverneiu* Morris had praised Philadelphia, 
which in its respect for " virtuous poverty " he thought so 
mucli more generous than other capitals where social splen- 
dour was indispensable, and in this the town had not 
changed. It was to Philadelphia's credit that a girl's social 
success did not depend on the length of her dressmaker's 
bill or the scale of her entertaining. JVIore than one as poor 
as I would have a different story to tell. But I suffered 
from having had no social training or apprenticeship. The 
Convent had been concerned in preparing me for society 
in the next world, not in this, and I had stayed in the 
Convent too long to make the many friendships that do 
more than most things to launch a girl on her social career 
— too long, for that matter, to know what society meant. 

It was a good thing that I did not know, did not realize 
what was ahead of me, that I allowed myself to be led 
like a Philadelphian to the slaughter, for a little experience 
of society is good for everybody. Unless men are to live 
like brutes — or like monks — they must establish some sort 
of social relations, and if the social game is played at all, 
it shoidd be according to the rules. Nowhere are the rules 
so rigorous as in Philadelphia, nowhere in America based 
upon more inexorable, as well as dignified, traditions, and 



134 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

I do not doubt that because of the stumbhng blocks in 
my path, I learned more about them than the Philadel- 
phia girl whose path was rose-strewn. Were history my 
mission, it woidd be amusing to trace these traditions to 
their source — first through the social life of the Friends 
who, however, are so exclusive that should this part of the 
story ever be told, whether as romance or history, it must 
come from the inside ; and then, through the gaieties of the 
World's People who flatter themselves the}^ are as exclu- 
sive, and who have the name for it, and whose exclusiveness 
is wholesale license compared to that of the Friends: — 
through the two distinct societies that have lived and 
flourished side by side ever since Philadelphia was. But 
my concern is solely with the gaieties as I, individually, 
shared in them. Now that I have outlived the discomforts 
of the experience, I can flatter myself that, in my small, 
insignificant fashion, I was helping to carry on old and 
fine traditions. 

II 

The most serious of these discomforts arose from the 
question of clothes, a terrifying question under the exist- 
ing conditions in the Third Street house, involving more 
industrious dress-making upstairs in the third story front 
bedroom than I cared about, and a waste of energies that 
should have been directed into more profitable channels. 
I sewed badly and was conscious of it. At the Convent, 
except for the necessity of darning my stockings, I had 







UNDER BROAD STREET STATION AT FIFTEENTH STREET 



THE SOCIAL ADVENTURE 137 

been as free from this sort of toiling as a lily of the field, 
and yet I too had gone arrayed, if hardly with the same 
conspieuous success, and, in my awkward hands, the white 
tarlatan — wlio wears tarlatan now? — and the cheap silk 
from Second Street, which composed my coming out trous- 
seau, were not growing into such things of beauty as to 
reconcile me to my new task. 

As unpleasant were the preliminary lessons in dancing- 
forced upon me by my family when, in my pride of recent 
graduation with honours, it offended me to be thought 
by anybody in need of learning anything. One evening 
every week during a few months, two or three friends 
and cousins joined me in the Third Street parlour to be 
drilled into dancing shajJe for coming out by INIadame 
Martin, the large, portly Frenchwoman who, in the same 
crinoline and heelless, sidelaced shoes, taught generations 
of Philadelphia children to dance. Even the Convent 
could not do without her, though there, to avoid the sin- 
fulness of " round dances," we had, under her tuition, 
waltzed and polkaed hand in hand, a method which my 
family feared, if not corrected, might lead to my disgrace. 

I seem rather a pathetic figure as I see myself 
obediently stitching and practising my steps without an 
idea of the true meaning and magnitude of the adventure 
I was getting ready for, or a chance of being set about it 
in the right way. That right way would have been for 
somebody to give a party or a dance or a reception espe- 
cially for me to come out at. But nobody among my 



138 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

friends and relations was obliging enough to accept the 
responsibility, and at home my Father could not get so 
far as to think of it. He would have needed too disastrous 
a panic in Third Street to provide the money. JNIadame 
Martin's lessons were already an extravagance and when, 
on top of them, he had gone so far as to pay for my sub- 
scription to the Dancing Class, and, in a cabless town, 
for the carriage, fortunately shared with friends, to go to 
it in, he had done all his bank account allowed him to do 
to start me in life. 

It would be as useful to explain that the sun rises in 
the east and sets in the west as to tell a Philadelphian that 
the Dancing Class to which I refer was not of the variety 
presided over by Madame Martin, but one to which Phila- 
delphians went to make use of just such lessons as I had 
been struggling with for weeks. The origin of its name 
I never kneM% I never asked, the Dancing Class being one 
of the Philadelphia institutions the Philadelphian took 
for granted : then, as it always had been and still is, I be- 
lieve, a distinguished social function of the year. To 
belong to it was indispensable to the Philadelphian with 
social pretensions. It was held every other Monday, if I 
remember — to think I should have a doubt on a subject 
of such importance! — and the first of the series was given 
so early in the winter that with it the season may be said 
to have opened. Perhaps this fact helped my family to 
decide that it was at the Dancing Class I had best make 
my first appearance. 



THE SOCIAL ADVENTURE 139 

III 

Youth is brave out of sheer ignorance. Wlien the 
nionient came, it never occurred to nie to liesitate or to 
consider the manner of my intro(hiction to the world. I 
was content that my Brother should be my sole chaperon. 
1 rather liked myself in my home-made white tarlatan, feel- 
ing very much dressed in my first low neck. I entertained 
no misgivings as to the fate awaiting me, imagining it 
as inevitable for a girl who was " out " to dance and have 
a good time as for a bird to fly once its wings were spread. 
If there were men to dance with, what more was needed? 
— it never having entered into my silly head that it was 
the girl's sad fate to have to wait for the man to ask her, 
and that sometimes the brute didn't. 

I had to go no further than the dressing-room at the 
Natatorium, where the Dancing Class then met, to learn 
that society was not so simple as I thought. I have since 
been to many strange lands among many strange people, 
but never have I felt so nuich of a stranger as when I, a 
Philadelphian born, doing conscientiously what Philadel- 
phia expected of me, was suddenly dropped down into 
the midst of a lot of Philadelphia girls engaged in the 
same duty. There was a freemasonry among them I could 
not help feeling right away — the freemasonry that went 
deeper than the chance of birth and the companionship of 
duty — the freemasonry that came from their all having 
grown up together since their perambulator days in Ritten- 



140 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

house Square, having learned to dance together, gone to 
children's parties together, studied at Miss Irwin's school 
together, spent the summer by the sea and in the moun- 
tains together, in a word, from their having done every- 
thing together until they were united by close bonds, the 
closer for being undefinable, that I, Convent bred, with not 
an idea, not a habit, not a point of view, in common with 
them, could not break through. I never have got quite 
over the feeling, though time has modified it. There is no 
loneliness like the loneliness in a crowd, doubly so if all the 
others in the crowd know each other. In the dressing-room 
that first evening it was so overwhelming to discover my- 
self entirely out of it where I should have been entirely in, 
that, without the stay and support of my friend, of old the 
Prince of Denmark to my Ghost of Hamlet's Father, and 
her sister, who had come out under more favourable con- 
ditions, I do not think I could have gone a step further 
in the great social adventure. 

As it was, with my heart in my boots, my hand trem- 
bling on my Brother's arm, to the music of Hassler's band, 
I entered the big bare hall of the Natatorium, and was out 
with no more fuss and with nobody particularly excited 
about it save myself. 

Things were a little better once away from the dress- 
ing-room. JNIy Brother was gay, had been out for two or 
three years, knew everybody. If he could not introduce 
me to the women he could introduce the men to me, and 
the freemasonry existing among them from their all having 




THE PHILADELPHIA CLUB 

THIRTEENTH AND WALNf T STREETS 



THE SOCIAL ADVENTURE 143 

gone to the Episcopal Academy and the University of 
Pennsylvania together, from their all having played cricket 
and baseball and football, or gone hunting together, from 
their all belonging to the same clubs, was not the kind from 
which I need suffer. Besides, those were the days when it 
was easy for the Philadelphia girl to get to know men, to 
make friends of them, without the Philadelphia gossip 
pouncing upon her and the Philadelphia father asking 
them their intentions — they could call upon her as often 
as they liked and the Philadelphia father would retreat 
from the front and back parlours, she could go out alone 
with them and the Philadelphia father would not interfere, 
knowing they had been brought up to see in themselves 
her protectors, especially appointed to look out for her. 
Some signs of change I might have discerned had I been 
observant. 31ore than the five o'clock tea affectation was 
to come of the new coquetting with English fashions. 
Enough had already come for me to know that if my 
Brother now and then asked me to go to the theatre, it was 
not for the pleasure of my company, but because a girl 
he wanted to take would not accept if he did not provide a 
companion for the sake of the proprieties. I am sure the 
old Philadelphia way was the most sensible. Certainly 
it was the most helpful if you happened to be a girl com- 
ing out with next to no friends among the women in what 
ought to have been your own set, with no chaperon to see 
that you made them, and, at the Dancing Class, with no 
hostess to keep a protecting eye on you but, instead, 



144 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

patronesses too absorbed in their triumphs to notice the 
less fortunate straggling far behind. 

Well, anyway, if honesty forljids nie to call myself a 
success, it is a satisfaction to remember that I did not have 
to play the wall-flower, which I would have thought the 
most terrible disaster that could befall me. To have to 
sit out the German alone would have been to sink to such 
depths of shame that I never afterwards could have held 
up my head. It was astonishing what mountains of de- 
spair we made of these social molehills ! I can still see the 
sad faces of the girls in a row against the wall, with their 
air of announcing to all whom it might concern: " Here 
we are, at your service, come and rescue us! " But there 
was another dreadful custom that did give me away only 
too often. When a man asked a girl beforehand to dance 
the German, Philadelphia expected him to send her a bunch 
of roses : always the same roses — Boston buds, weren't they 
called? — and from Pennock's on Chestnut Street if he 
knew what was what. To take your place roseless was to 
proclaim that you had not been asked until the eleventh 
hour. It was not pleasant. However, if I went sometimes 
without the roses, I always had the jjartner, I had even 
moments of triumph as when, one dizzy evening before the 
assembled Dancing Class, I danced with Willie White. 

It is not indiscreet to mention so great a person by 
name and, in doing so, not presuming to use it so familiarly 
— he was the Dancing Class, as far as I know, he had no 
other occupation; and his name was Willie, not William, 



THE SOCIAL AD\ENTURE 145 

not Mr. AVhite. Willie, as Philadelphians said it, was 
a title of honour, like the C(£ur de Lion or the Petit 
Caporal bestowed upon other great men — the measure 
of the estimate in which social Philadelphia held him. 
Beau Nash in the Pump Room at Bath was no mightier 
power than Willie White in the Dancing Class at the 
Natatorium. He ruled it, and ruled it magnificently: an 
autocrat, a tyrant, under whose yoke social Philadelphia 
was eager to thrust its neck. What he said was law, whom 
he approved could enter, whom he objected to was without 
redress, his recognition of the Philadelphian's claims to 
admission was a social passport. He saw to everything, 
he led the German, and I do not supjjose there was a girl 
who, at her first Dancing Class her first winter, did not, 
at her first chance, take him out in the German as her 
solemn initiation. That is how I came to enjoy my 
triumph, and I do not remember repeating it for he never 
condescended to take me out in return. But still, I can 
say that once I danced with Willie White at the Dancing- 
Class — And did I once see Shelley plain? 

IV 

There were other powers, as I was made quickly to 
understand — not only the powers that all Biddies, Cad- 
walladers. Rushes, Ingersolls, Whartons, in a word all 
members of approved Philadelphia families were by Phila- 
delphia right, but a few who had risen even higher than 
that splendid throng and were accepted as their leaders. 

10 



146 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

It was not one of the most brilliant periods in the social 
history of Philadelphia. Mrs. Rush had had no successor, 
no woman presided over what could have been given the 
name of Salon as she had. Even the Wistar parties, ex- 
clusively for men, discontinued during the upheaval of 
the Civil War, had not yet been revived. But, notwith- 
standing the comparative quiet and depression, there were 
a few shining social lights. 

Had I been asked in the year of my coming out who 
was the greatest woman in the world, I should have 
answered, without hesitation, Mrs. Bowie. She, too, may be 
mentioned by name without indiscretion for she, too, has 
become historical. She was far from beautiful at the date 
to which I refer, she was no longer in her first youth, was 
inclined to stoutness and I fear had not learned how to fight 
it as women who would be in the fashion must learn to-day. 
She was not rich and the fact is worth recording, so char- 
acteristic is it of Philadelphia. The names of leaders 
of society in near New York usually had millions attached 
to them, those there allowed to lead paid a solid price for 
it in their entertaining. But Mrs. Bowie's power depended 
upon her personal fascination — with family of course to 
back it — which was said to be irresistible. And yet not to 
know her wvas to be unknown. Intimacy with her was to 
have arrived. At least a bowing acquaintance, an occa- 
sional invitation to her house, was essential to success or 
its dawning. She entertained modestly as far as I could 
gather from my experience, — as far as I can now depend 



THE SOCIAL ADVENTURE 147 

on my memory — gave no balls, no big dinners; if there 
were select little dinners, I was too young and insignificant 
to hear of them. I never got farther than the after- 
noon tea to which everybody was invited once every 
winter, a comfortless crush in her small house, with 
next to nothing to eat and drink as things to eat and drink 
go according to the lavish Philadelphia standard. But that 
did not matter. Nothing mattered except to be there, to 
be seen there. I was tremendously pleased with myself 
the first time the distinction was mine, though of my 
presence in her house Mrs. Bowie was no doubt amiably 
imconscious. I never knew her to recognize me out of it, 
though I sometimes met her when she came informally to 
see one of my Aunts who was her friend, or to give me the 
smile at the Dancing Class that would have raised my 
drooping spirits. The only notice she ever spared me 
there was to express to my Brother — who naturally, 
brother-like, made me uncomfortable by reporting it to 
me — her opinion of my poor, unpretentious, home-made. 
Second Street silk as an example of the absurdity of a 
long train to dance in, which shows how completely she 
had forgotten who I was. 

Her chief rival, if so exalted a personage could have a 
rival, was Mrs. Connor, from whom also a smile, a recogni- 
tion, was equivalent to social promotion. Her fascination 
did not have to be explained. She was an unqualified 
beauty, though the vision I have retained is of beauty in 
high-necked blue velvet and chinchilla, w^hich I could not 



148 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

have enjoyed at the Dancing Class or any evening party. 
I reahse as I write that in the details of Philadelphia's 
social history 1 would come out badly from too rigid an 
examination. 

V 
To Mrs. Connor's I was never asked with or without 
the crowd. But other houses were opened to me, other 
invitations came, for, if I had not friends, my family had. 
My white tarlatan and my Second Street silk had grown 
shabby before the winter was half over. At many parties 
I got to know what a delightful thing a Philadelphia party 
was, and if I had gone to one instead of many I should 
have known as well. Philadelphia had a standard for its 
parties as for everything, and to deviate from this 
standard, to attempt originality, to invent the " freak " 
entertainments of New York, would have been excessively 
bad form. The same card printed by Dreka requested the 
pleasure of your company to the same Philadelphia house 
— the Philadelphia hostess would not have stooped to invite 
you to the Continental or the Girard, the LaPierre House 
or the Colonnade, which were the Bellevue and the Ritz 
of my day — where you danced in the same spacious front 
and back parlours, with the same crash on the floor, to the 
same music by Hassler's band; where you ate the same 
Terrapin, Croquettes, Chicken Salad, Oysters, Boned 
Turkey, Ice-cream, little round Cakes with white icing on 
top, and drank the same Fish-House Punch provided by 
the same Augustine; where the same Cotillon began at 





THE NEW RITZ-CARLTON; THE FINISHING TOUCHES 

THE WALNUT STREET ADDITION HAS SINCE BEEN MADE 



THE SOCIAL ADVENTURE 151 

tlie same hour with the same figures and the same favours 
and the same partners ; where there was the same dressing- 
room in tlie second story front and the same Philadelphia 
girls who froze me on my arrival and on my departure. 
There was no getting away from the same people in Phila- 
deJiDhia. That was the worst of it. The town was big 
enough for a chance to meet different people in different 
houses every evening in the week, but by that arbitrary 
boundary of " Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce and Pine," it 
has made itself socially into a village with the pettiness and 
limitations of village life. I have never wondered that 
Philadelphians are as cordial to strangers as everybody 
who ever came to Philadelphia knows them to be — that 
Philadelphia doors are as hospitable as Thackeray once de- 
scribed them. Philadelphians have reason to rejoice and 
make the most of it when occasionally they see a face they 
have not been seeing regularly at every party they have 
been to, and hear talk they have not listened to all their 
lives. 

Sometimes it was to the afternoon reception the card 
engraved by Dreka invited me, and then again it was to 
meet the same people and — in the barbarous mode of the 
day — to eat the same Croquettes, Chicken Salad, Terra- 
pin, Boned Turkey, Ice-cream, and little round Cakes 
with white icing on top, and to drink the same Punch from 
Augustine's at five o'clock in the afternoon, and at least 
risk digestion in a good cause. But rarely did the card 
engraved by Dreka invite me to dinner, and I could not 



152 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

have been invited to anything I hked better. I liave 
always thought dinner the most civihzed form of enter- 
tainment. It may have been an entertainment Phila- 
delphia preferred to reserve for my elders, and, if I 
am not mistaken, the most formal dinners, or dinners 
with any pretence to being public, were then usually men's 
affairs, just as the Saturday Club, and the Wistar parties 
had been, and the Clover Club, and the Fish-House Club 
were: from them women being as religiously excluded as 
from the dinners of the City Companies in London, or 
from certain monasteries in Italy and the East. Indeed, 
as I look back, it seems to me that woman's social presence 
was correct only in private houses and at private gather- 
ings. Nothing took away my breath so completely on 
going back to Philadelphia after my long absence as the 
Country Clubs where men and women now meet and share 
their amusements, if it was not the concession of a dining- 
room to women by a Club like the Union League that, of 
old, was in my esteem as essentially masculine as the Phila- 
delphia Lady thought the sauces at Blossom's Hotel in 
Chester. 

But tliere were plenty of other things to do which I did 
with less rather than more thoroughness. I paid midday 
visits, wondering why duty should have set me so irksome 
a task. I received with friends on New Year's Day — an 
amazing day when men paid off their social debts and 
made, at some houses, their one call of the year, joining 
together by twos and threes and fours to charter a car- 



THE SOCIAL ADVENTURE 153 

riage, or they would never have got through their round, 
armed with all their courage either to refuse positively or 
to accept everywhere the glass of JNIadeira or Punch and 
the usual masterpiece from Augustine's. It was another 
barharous custom, but an old Philadelphia custom, and 
Philadelphia has lost so many old customs that I could 
have wished this one spared. I went to the concerts of 
the Orpheus Club. I went to the Opera and the Theatre 
when I was asked, whicli was not often. I passed with the 
proper degree of self-consciousness the Philadelphia Club 
at Thirteenth and Walnut, the same row of faces always 
looking out over newspapers and magazines from the 
same row of windows. And I did a great many things 
that were pleasant and a great many more that were un- 
pleasant, conscientiously rejecting nothing social I was 
told to do when the opportunity to do it came my way. 
But it all counted for nothing weighed in the balance with 
the one thing I did not do — I never went to the Assembly. 



CHAPTER VII: THE SOCIAL 
ADVENTURE: THE ASSEMBLY 



I AM too good a Philadelphian to begin to talk about 
the Assembh^ in the middle of a chapter. It holds 
a place apart in the social life of Philadelphia of 
which annually it is the supreme moment, and in my record 
of my experiences of this life, however imperfect, I can 
treat it with no less consideration. It must have a chapter 
apart. 

To go to the Assembly was the one thing of all others 
I wanted to do, not only on the general principle that the 
thing one wants most is the thing one cannot have, but 
because to go to the Assembly was the thing of all others 
I ought to have done. There could be no question of that. 
You were not really out in Philadelphia if you did not 
go; only the Friends could afford not to. And Ameri- 
cans from other towns felt much the same way about 
it, they felt they were not anybody if they were not in- 
vited, and they moved heaven and earth for an invitation, 
and prized it, when received, as highly as a pedigree. A 
few honoured guests were always at the Assembly. 

Philadelphians who are not on the Assembly list may 
pretend to laugh at it, to despise it, to sneer at the snob- 

154 







^f&w^ 



THE HALL, STENTON 



THE SOCIAL ADVENTURE: THE ASSEMBLY 157 

bishness of people who endeavour to draw a social line 
in a countiy where everybody is as good as everybody else 
and where those on the right side may look down but those 
on the wrong will not be induced to look up. And not one 
among those who laugh and sneer would not jump at the 
chance to get in, were it given them, at the risk of being 
transformed into snobs themselves. For the Assembly 
places the Philadelphian as nothing else can. It gives hhn 
what the German gets from his quarterings or the Briton 
from an invitation to Court. The Dancing Class had its 
high social standard, it required grandfathers as cre- 
dentials before admission could be granted, the archives 
of the Historical Society of Pensylvania supplied no more 
authoritative assurance of Philadelphia respectability than 
its subscription hst, but the Dancing Class was lax in 
its standard compared to the Assembly. I am not sure 
what was the number, what the quality, of ancestors the 
Assembly exacted, but I know that it was as inexorable in 
its exactions as the Council of Ten. It would have been 
easier for troops of camels to pass through the eye of a 
needle than for one Philadelphian north of jNIarket Street 
to get through the Assembly door. I am told that matters 
are worse to-day when Philadelphia society has increased 
in numbers until new limits must be set to the Assembly 
lest it perish of its own unwieldiness. The applicants must 
produce not only forefathers but fathers and mothers on 
the list, and the Philadelphian whose name was there more 
than a century and a half ago cannot make good his rights 



158 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

if his parents neglected to establish theirs. And to be re- 
fused is not merely humiliation, but humiliation with Phila- 
delphia for witness, and the misery and shame that are the 
burden of the humiliated. 

It is foolish, I admit, society is too light a matter to 
suffer for; it is cruel, for the social wound goes deep. But 
were it ten times more foolish, ten times more cruel, I 
would not have it otherwise. Philadelphians preserve their 
State House, their Colonial mansions and churches; why 
should they not be as careful of their Assembly, since it 
has as historic a background and as fine Colonial and 
Revolutionary traditions ? They are proud of having their 
names among those who signed the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence; why should they not take equal — or greater — 
pride in figuring among the McCalls and AVillings and 
Shippens and Sims and any number of others on the first 
Assembly lists, since these are earlier in date? Besides, 
to such an extremity have the changes of the last quarter 
of a century driven the Philadelphian that he must make 
a good fight for survival in his own town. When I think 
of how mere wealth is taking possession of " Chestnut, 
Walnut, Spruce and Pine," how uptown is marrying into 
it, how the Jew and the alien are forcing their way in, I 
see in loyalty to the traditions of tlie Assembly of Phila- 
delphian's strongest defence of the social rights which are 
his by inheritance. Should he let go, what would there be 
for him to catch on to again? 














w 



\ 







.\ 






/■'wrP' 




)i 



■% 






I If! ' 









^:x 



'PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND UNTO ALL THE INHABITANTS THEREOF" 



THE SOCIAL ADVENTURE: THE ASSEMBLY lOl 

It would be different if what Philadelphia was getting 
in exchange were finer, or as fine. But it is not. The 
old exclusiveness, with its follies, was better, more amus- 
ing, than the new tendency to do away with everything 
that gave Philadelf)hia society its character. It was the 
charm and the strength of Philadelphia society that it had 
a character of its own and was not just like Boston or New 
York or Baltimore society. Nobody, however remote was 
their mission from social matters, could visit Philadelphia 
without being impressed by this difference, whether it was 
to discover, with John Adams, that Philadelphians had 
their particular way of being a happy, elegant, tranquil, 
polite people, or, with so unlikely an observer as Matthew 
Ai'nold, that " the leading families in Philadelphia were 
much thought of," and that Philadelphia names saying 
nothing to an Englishman said ever}i;hing to every Ameri- 
can. Who you were counted in Philadelphia, as what 
3'ou knew in Boston, or what you were worth in New 
York, and there was not an American of old who did not 
accept the fact and respect it. Philadelphia society clung 
to the Philadelphia surface of tranquillity, of untroubled 
repose whatever might be going on beneath it, and in my 
time I would not like to say how disturbing and agitating 
were the scandals and intrigues that were said to be going 
on. They were rarely made public. It was not in Phila- 
delphia as in London where next to everybody you meet 

has been or is about to be divorced, though it might be 
11 



162 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

that next to everybody you met was not making it a 
practice to keep to the straight and narrow path, to be 
as innocent as everybody looked. Logan Square could 
have told tales, if the Divorce Court could not. 

But now Philadelphia has strayed from its characteris- 
tic exclusiveness ; gone far to get rid of even the air of tran- 
quillity. With the modern " Peggy Shippen " and " Sally 
Wister " alert to give away its affairs in the columns of the 
daily paper, it could not keep its secrets to itself if it 
wanted to. And it does not seem to want to — that is the 
saddest part of the whole sad transformation. It rather 
hkes the world outside to know what it is doing and, worse, 
it takes that world as its model. Its aim apparently is to 
show that it can be as like every other town as two peas, 
so that, drinking tea to music at the Bellevue, dancing at 
the Ritz, lunching and dining and playing golf and polo 
at the Country Clubs, the visitor can comfortably for- 
get he is not at home but in Philadelphia. The youth 
of Philadelphia have become eager to desert the Episcopal 
Academy and the Llniversity for Groton or St. Paul's, 
Llarvard or Yale, in order that they may be trained to be 
not Philadelphians but, as they imagine, men of the world, 
forgetting the distinction there has hitherto been in being- 
plain Philadelphians. At the moment when in far older 
towns of Europe people are striving to recover their 
character by reviving local costumes, language, and cus- 
toms, Philadelphians are deliberately throwing theirs away 
with their old traditions. The Assemblv is one of their 




BED ROOM, STENTON THE HOME OF JAMES LOGAN 



THE SOCIAL ADVENTURE: THE ASSEMBLY 165 

few rare possessions left, and strict as they are with it in 
one way, in another they are playing fast and loose with 
it, holding it, as if it were a mere modern dance, at a 
fashionable hotel. 

II 

If I now regret, as I do, never having gone to the 
Assembly, it is because of all that it represents, all that 
makes it a classic. But at the time, my regret, though as 
keen, was because of more personal reasons. I could have 
borne the historic side of my loss with equanimity, it was 
the social side of it that broke my heart. I have had many 
bad quarters of an hour in my life, but few as poignant as 
that which followed the appearance at our front door of 
the coloured man who distributed the cards for the As- 
sembly — far too precious to be trusted to the post — and 
who came to leave one for my Brother. It was an injustice 
that oppressed me with a sense of my wrongs as a woman 
and might have set me window-smashing had window- 
smashing as a protest been invented. Why should the 
Assembly be so much easier for men? My Brother had 
but to put on the dress suit he had worn it did not matter 
how many years, and as he was, like every other American 
young man, at work and an independent person altogether 
— a millionaire I saw in him — the price of the card in an 
annual subscription was his affair and nobody else's. But, 
in my case the price was not my affair. I had not a cent 
to call my own, I was not at work, I was denied the right 



166 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

to work, and, the Assembly coming fairly late in the sea- 
son, my white tarlatan and Second Street silk showed wear 
and tear that unfitted them for the most important social 
function of the winter. PhiladeliDhia women dressed 
simply, it is true; that used to be one of the ways the 
Quaker influence showed itself; they boasted then that 
their restraint in dress distinguished them from other 
American women. But simplicit}^ does not mean cheap- 
ness or indifference. The Friends took infinite pains with 
their soft brown and silvery grey silks, with their delicate 
fichus and Canton shawls. The well-dressed Philadel- 
phia woman knows what she has to pay for the elegance 
of her simplicity. And the Assembly has always called for 
the finest she could achieve, from the day when Franklin 
was made to feel the cost to him if his daughter was to have 
what she needed to go out " in decency " with the Wash- 
ingtons in Philadelphia. 

I had the common sense to understand my position and 
not to be misled by the poverty-stricken, but irresistible 
Nancies and Dollies who were enjoying a vogue in the 
novels of the day and who encircled empty bank accounts 
and big families with the halo of romance. To read about 
the struggles with poverty of the irresistible young heroine 
might be amusing, but I had no special use for them as a 
personal experience. It would have been preposterous for 
me to think for a moment that, without a decent gown, 
I could go to the Assembly and, to do myself justice, I did 
not think it. But by this time I knew what coming out 







-,i^ -.ir-lgj^ 



THE TUNNEL IN THE PARK 



THE SOCIAL ADVENTURE: THE ASSEMBLY 169 

and being out meant and, therefore, I apj^reciated the 
social drawback it must be for me not to be able to go. It 
explained, as nothing hitherto had, how far I was from 
being caught up in the whirl, and it is only the whirl that 
keeps one going in society — that makes society a delightful 
profession, and I think I realized this truth better than the 
people so extravagantly in the Philadelphia whirl as to have 
no time to think about it. All that winter I never got 
to the point of being less concerned as to where the next 
invitation was to come from than as to how I was to accept 
all that did come. There is no use denying that I was dis- 
appointed and suffered from the disappointment. One 
pays a heavier price for the first foolish illusion lost than 
for all the others put together, no matter how serious they 
are. 

Ill 

When the season was over, I had as little hope of keep- 
ing up in other essential ways. If society then adjourned 
from Philadelphia because the heat made it impossible to 
stay at home, it was only to start a new Philadelphia on 
the porch of Howland's Hotel at Long Branch or, as it 
was just then beginning to do, at Bar Harbor and in the 
camps of the Adirondacks, or, above all, at Narragan- 
sett. " It may be accepted as an incontrovertible truth," 
Janvier says in one of his Philadelphia stories, " that a 
Philadelphian of a certain class who missed coming to the 
Pier for August would refuse to believe, for that year at 



170 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

least, in the alternation of the four seasons; while an en- 
forced absence from that damply delightful watering- 
place for two successive summers very probably would 
lead to a rejection of the entire Copernican system." If 
Philadelphians went abroad, which was much more excep- 
tional then than now, it was to meet each other. I know 
hotels in London to-day where, if you go in the afternoon, 
it is just like an afternoon reception in Philadephia, and 
hotels in Paris where at certain seasons you find nobody 
but Philadelphians talking Philadelphia, though the Phila- 
delphian has not disappeared who does not want to travel 
because he finds Philadelphia good enough for him. And 
it has always been like that. 

But I could not follow Philadelphia society in the 
summer time any more than I could go with it to the 
Assembly in the winter. I had reason to consider myself 
fortunate if I travelled as far as Mount Airy or Chestnut 
Hill out of the red brick oven Philadelphia used to be — is 
now and ever shall be ! — from June to September. It was 
an event if I got oiF with the crowd — the linen-dustered, 
wilting-collared crow^ds ; surely we are not so demoralized 
by the heat nowadays? — to Cape INIay or Atlantic City, to 
enjoy the land breeze blowing, from over the Jersey 
swamps, clouds of mosquitoes before it so that nobody 
could stir out of doors without gloves and a veil. These, 
however, were not the summer joys society demanded of 
me. The further I went into the social game, the less I 
got from it, and I had decided that for the poor it was not 








"im, 




THE BOAT HOUSES ON THE SCHUYLKILL 



THE SOCIAL ADVENTURE: THE ASSEMBLY 173 

worth the candle at the end of the first year, — or was it the 
second? That I should be uncertain shows how httle my 
heart was in the business of going out. 

I did not necessarily give up every amusement because 
I did not go out. In fact, I cannot recall a dance that 
amused me as much as many a boating party on the Schuyl- 
kill in the gold of the June afternoon, or many a walking 
party through the Park in the starlit summer night. There 
also remained, had I chosen, the staid entertainment of the 
women who, for one reason or other, had retired from the 
gayer roimd, and whose amusements consisted of more 
intimate receptions, teas, without number, sewing societies. 
And it was the period when Philadelphia was waking up 
to the charms of the higher education for women, — to the 
dissipations of " culture." I had friends who filled their 
time by studying for the examinations Harvard had at last 
condescended to allow them to pass, or try to pass ; others 
found their sober recreation by qualifying themselves as 
teachers and teaching in a large society formed to impart 
learning by correspondence : all these women keeping their 
occupation to themselves as much as possible, not wishing 
to make a public scandal in Philadelphia which had not 
accustomed itself to the spectacle of women working un- 
less compelled to ; — all this quite outside of the University 
set, which must have existed, if I did not know it, as the 
Bryn Mawr set exists to-day, but which, as far as my 
experience went, was then never heard of except by the 
fortunate and privileged few who belonged to it. 



174 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

But this new amusement required effort, and experi- 
ence had not made me in love with the amusement that had 
to be striven for, that had to be paid for by exertion of any 
kind. There was an interval when Philadelphia would 
have been searched in vain for another idler as confirmed 
as I. Having foimd nothing to do, I proceeded to do it 
with all my might. I stood in no need of the poet's com- 
mand to lean and loaf at my ease, though I am afraid 
I leaned and loafed so well as to neglect the other half 
of his precept and to forget to invite my soul. To those 
years I now look back as to so much good time lost in a 
working life all to short at the best. 



CHAPTER VIII: A QUESTION OF CREED 



IJNIAY not have understood at the time, but I must 
have been vaguely conscious that if so often I felt 
myself a stranger in my native town, it was not only 
because of the long years I had been shut up in boarding- 
school, but because that boarding-school happened to be a 
Convent. 

There were schools in Philadelphia and schools out of 
it as useful as Rittenhouse Square in laying the founda- 
tion for profitable friendships. Miss Irwin's furnished 
ahiiost as good social credentials as a Colonial Governor in 
the family. But a Philadelphia Convent did the other 
thing as successfully. It was not the Convent as a Con- 
vent that was objected to. In Paris, it could lend distinc- 
tion : the fact that, at the mature age of six, I spent a year 
at Conflans, might have served me as a social asset. In 
Louisiana, or JNIaryland, a Philadelpliia girl could see its 
door close upon her, and not despair of social salvation. 
Everything depended upon where the Convent was. In 
some places, it had a social standing, in others it had none, 
and Philadelphia was one of the others. In France, in 
Louisiana, in JNIaryland, to be a Catholic was to be at the 
top of the social scale, approved by society; in Pennsyl- 
vania, it was to be at the bottom, despised by society. 

175 



176 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

This was another Philadelphia fact I accepted on faith. 
It was not until I began to think about Philadelphia that 
I saw how consistent Philadelphians were in their incon- 
sistency. Their position in the matter was what their past 
had made it, and the inconsistency is in their greater liberal- 
ity to-day. For Pennsylvania has never been Catholic, 
has never had an aristocratic Catholic tradition like Eng- 
land : to the Friends there, all the aristocracy of the tradi- 
tional kind belongs. The people — the World's People — 
who rushed to Pennsylvania to secure for themselves the 
religious liberty William Penn offered indiscriminately to 
everybody, found they could not enjoy it if Catholics were 
to profit by it with them. They had not been there any time 
when, as one of the early Friends had the wit to see and to 
say, they " were surfeited with liberty," and the Friends, 
who refused to all sects alike the privilege of expressing 
their religious fervour in wood piles for witches and prison 
cells for heretics, could not succeed in depriving them of 
their healthy religious prejudice which, they might not 
have been able to explain why, concentrated itself upon the 
Catholic. Episcopalians approved of a doctrine of free- 
dom that meant they could build their own churches where 
they would. Presbyterians and Baptists objected so little 
to each other that, for a while, they could share the same 
pulpit. Moravians put up their monasteries where it 
suited them best. IMennonites took possession of German- 
town. German mystics were allowed to search in peace 
for the Woman in White and wait hopefully for the 



A QUESTION OF CREED 177 

Millennium on the banks of the Wissahickon. I^ater on 
Whitefield set the whole town of Philadelphia to singing 
psalms, and Philadelphia refrained from interfering with 
what must have been an intolerable nuisance. Even Jews 
were welcome — their names are among early legislators 
ami on early Assembly lists. Catholics, alone, they all 
agreed, had no right to any portion of Penn's gift, and 
popular opinion is often stronger than the law. Whatever 
ill will they had to spare from the Catholics, they reserved 
for the Friends to whom they owed ever^i;hing — if Penn- 
sylvania was " a dear Pennsylvania " to Penn, a good part 
of the blame lay with the " drunken crew of priests " and 
the " turbulent churchmen " whom he denounced in one 
of those letters to Logan, which are among the saddest 
ever written and published to the world. 

After religious passions had run their course, the 
religious prejudice against the Catholic was handed down 
as social prejudice, which was all it was in my day when 
Philadelphians, who would question the social standing of 
a Catholic in Philadelphia simply because he was a Catho- 
lic, could accept him without question in the Catholic town 
of Baltimore or New Orleans simply because he was one. 
The Catholic continued to pay a heavy price socially for his 
religion in Philadelphia where it was not the thing to be a 
Catholic, where it never had been the thing, where it got to 
be less the thing as successive Irish emigrations crowded 
the Catholic churches. I fancy at the period of which I 
am writing Philadelphians, if asked, would have said that 



178 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

Catholicism was for Irish servants — for the illiterate. I 
remember a book called Kate Vincent I used to read at a 
Protestant Uncle's, where it may purposely have been 
placed in my way. Does anybody else remember it? — a 
story of school life with a heroine of a school girl who, in 
the serene confidence of her sixteen or seventeen summers, 
refuted all the learned Doctors of the Church by convicting 
a poor little Irish slavey of ignorance for praying to the 
Blessed Virgin and the Saints. I think I must have for- 
gotten it with many foolish books for children read in my 
childhood had not Kate Vincent been so like Philadel- 
phians in her calm superiority, though, fortunately, Phila- 
delphians did not share her proselytising fervour. They 
went to the other extreme of lofty indifference and for 
them the Catholic churches in their town did not exist any 
more than the streets of little two-story houses south of 
Pine, a region into which they would not have thought of 
penetrating except to look up somebody who worked for 

them. 

II 

I might have learned as much during my holidays at 
my Grandfather's had I been given to reflection during my 
early years. ^ly Father was a convert with the convert's 
proverbial ardour. He had been baptised in the Convent 
chapel with my Sister and myself — I was eight years old 
at the time — and many who were present declared it the 
most touching ceremony they had ever seen. However, to 
the familv, who had not seen it, it was anything but touch- 






•-■VT^^r^^- 




THE PULPIT, ST. PETER'S 



A QUESTION OF CREED 181 

ing. They were all good inenibers of the Episcopal 
Church and had been since they landed in Virginia; more- 
over, one of my Father's brothers was an Episcopal clergy- 
man and Head Master of the Episcopal Academy, Phila- 
delphia's bed-rock of religious respectability. The bap- 
tism was only conditional, for the Catholic Church baptizes 
conditionally those who have been baptized in any church 
before, but even so it must have been trying to them as a 
precaution insolently superfluous. I do not remember that 
anything was ever said, or suggested, or hinted. But there 
was an undercurrent of disapproval that, child as I was, I 
felt, though I could not have put it into words. One thing 
plain was that when we children went off to our church 
with my Father, we were going where nobody else in my 
Grandfather's house went, except the servants, and that, 
for some incomprehensible reason, it was rather an odd 
sort of thing for us to do, making us different from most 
people we knew in Philadelphia. 

Nor had I the chance to lose sight of this difference 
at the Convent. The education I was getting there, when 
not devoted to launching my soul into Paradise, was pre- 
paring me for the struggle against the temptations of the 
world which, from all I heard about it, I pictured as a 
horrible gulf of evil yawning at the Convent gate, ready 
to swallow me up the minute that gate shut behind me. 
To face it was an ordeal so alarming in anticipation that 
there was an interval when I convinced myself it would be 
infinitely safer, by becoming a nun, not to face it at all. 



182 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

If I stopped to give the world a name, it was bound to 
be Philadelphia, the place in which I was destined to live 
upon leaving the Convent. 1 knew that it was Protestant, 
as we often prayed for the conversion of its people, I the 
harder because they included my relations who if not con- 
verted could, my catechism taught me, be saved only so 
as by the invincible ignorance with which I hardly felt it 
polite to credit them. To what other conclusion could I 
come, arguing logically, than that Philadelphia was the 
horrible gulf of evil yawning for me, and that in this gulf 
Protestants swarmed, scattering temptation along the path 
of the Catholic who walked alone among them? — an idea 
of Philadelphia that probably would have surprised no- 
body more than the nuns who were training me for my 
life of struggle in it. 

The gulf of the world did not seem so evil once it 
swallowed me up, but that socially the Catholic walked in 
it alone, there could be no mistake. When eventually I 
left school and began going out on my modest scale, I 
could not fail to see that the people I met in church were 
not, as a rule, the people I met at the Dancing Class, or 
at parties, or at receptions, or on that abominable round of 
morning calls, and this was the more surprising because 
Philadelphians of the " Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce and 
Pine " set were accustomed to meeting each other wher- 
ever they went. Except for the small group of those 
Philadelphia families of French descent with French 
names who were not descendants of the Huguenots, and 



A QUESTION OF (REED 183 

here and there a coiiAert like iiiy Father, and an occasional 
native Philadelphian who, unaccountably, had always been 
a Catholic, the con,t>re<^'ation, whether I went to the 
Cathedral or St. John's, to St. Joseph's or St. Patrick's, 
was chiefly Irish, as also were the priests when they were 
not Italians. 

Fashion sent the Philadelphian to the Episcopal 
Church. It could not have been otherwise in a town as 
true to tradition as Philadelphia had not ceased to be in 
my young days. No sooner had Episcopalians settled in 
Philadelphia than, by their greater grandeur of dress and 
manner, they showed the greater social aspirations they 
had brought with them from the other side — the English- 
man's confidence in the social superiority of the Church of 
England to all religion outside of it. Presbyterians are 
said to have had a pretty fancy in matters of wigs and 
powdered and frizzled hair, which may also have been 
symbolic, for they followed a close fashionable second. 
Baptists and ^lethodists, on the contrary, affected to 
despise dress and, while I cannot say if the one fact has 
anything to do with the other, I knew fewer Baptists and 
INIethodists than Catholics. By my time the belief that no 
one could be " a gentleman " outside the Church of Eng- 
land, or its American offshoot, was stronger than ever, and 
fashion required a pew at St. Mark's or Holy Trinity or 
St. James's, if ancient lineage did not claim one at St. 
Peter's or Christ Church; though old-fashioned people 
like my Grandfather and Grandmother might cling blame- 



181 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

lessly to St. Andrew's which was highly respectable, if not 
fashionable, and new-fashioned people might brave critic- 
ism with the Ritualists at St. Clement's. As for Catholics, 
a pew down at St. Joseph's in Willing's Alley or, worse 
still, up town at the Cathedral in Logan Square, put them 
out of the reckoning, at a hopeless disadvantage socially, 
however better off they might be for it spiritually. That 
the Cathedral was in Logan Square was in itself a social 
offence of a kind that society could not tolerate. At the 
correct churches every function, every meeting, every 
Sunday-school, every pious re-union, as well as every ser- 
vice, became a fashionable duty; and at the church door 
after service on Sunday, a man with whom one had danced 
the night l)efore might be picked up to walk on Walnut 
Street with, which was a social observance only less indis- 
pensable than attendance at the Assembly and the Dancing 
Class. 

I recall the excitement of girls of my age, their feel- 
ing that they had got to the top of everything, the first time 
they took this sacramental walk, if not with a man which 
was the crowning glory, at least with a woman who was 
prominent, or successful, in society. But I believe I could 
count the times I joined in the Walnut Street procession 
on Sunday morning. As long as I lived in Third Street, 
my usual choice of a church lay between St. Joseph's, the 
Jesuit church in Willing's Alley with its air of retirement, 
and St. Mary's on Fourth Street, where the orphans used 
to come from Seventh and Spruce and sometimes sing an 




THE CATHEDRAL. LOGAN SQUARE 



A QUESTION OF CREED 187 

anthem that, for any save musical reasons, I deh^hted in, 
and where we had a pew. After we moved from Third 
Street, our pew was at the Cathedral, more distinguished 
from the clerical standpoint, for there we sat under the 
Bishop. No matter which our church. High Mass was 
long: I could not have got to the appointed part of Walnut 
Street in time, had I found at the door the companion to 
go there with me. There was nothing to do but to walk 
home alone or sedately at my Father's side, and one's 
Father, however correct he might be under other circum- 
tances, was not the right person for these occasions. On 
Sundays I could not conceal from myself that I was 
socially at a discount. The reflection that this was where 
I, as a Catholic, scored, should have consoled me, for if the 
Episcoj)alian was performing a social duty when he went 
to church, I, as a Catholic, was making a social sacrifice, 
and sacrifice of some sort is of the essence of religion. 

Ill 

If I could but have taken the trouble to be interested, 
it must also have occurred to me to wonder why St. Jos- 
eph's, where I went so often, was hidden in an obscure 
alley. In Philadelphia, the town of straight streets 
crossing each other at right angles, it is not easy for a 
building of the kind to keep out of sight. But not one man 
in a hundred, not one in a thousand, who, passing along 
Third Street, looked up Willing's Alley, dreamt for a 
minute that somewhere in that alley, embedded in a net- 



188 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

work of brokers' and railroad offices, carefully concealing 
every trace of itself, was a church with a large congrega- 
tion. INIost churches in Philadelphia, as everywhere, like 
to display themselves prominently with an elaborate 
facade, or a lofty steeple, or a green enclosure, or a grave- 
yard full of monuments. St. Peter's, close by, fills a 
whole block. Christ Church stands flush with the pave- 
ment. The simplest Meeting-House, by the beautiful 
trees that overshadow it or the high walls that enclose it 
or the bit of green at its door, will not let the passer-by 
forget it. But St. Joseph's, evidently, did not want to be 
seen, did not want to be remembered ; evidently hesitated to 
show that its doors were wide and hospitably open to all 
the world in the beautiful fashion of the Catholic Church. 
There was something furtive about it, an air of mystery, 
it was almost as if one were keeping a clandestine appoint- 
ment with religion when one turned from the street into 
the humble alley, and from the alley into the silence of the 
sanctuary. 

Perhaps I thought less about this mysterious aloofness 
because, once in the church, I felt so much at home. I do 
not mind owning now, though I would not have owned it 
then for a good deal, that after my return from the Con- 
vent, I had the uncomfortable feeling of being a stranger 
not only in my town, but in my family. I had been in the 
Convent eleven years and until this day when I look back 
to my childhood, it is the Convent I remember as home. 
St. Joseph's seemed a part of the Convent, therefore of 






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Ar 



■^u '€m- 



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ffc^^ 
















-*^^'', 



CHRIST CHURCH, FROM SECOND STREET 



^-^^^ - 



A QUESTION OF CREED 191 

home, that had strayed into the town by mistake. In some 
ways it was not Hke the Convent, greatly to my discomfort. 
The chajjel there was dainty in detail, exqnisitely kejDt, 
the altars fresh with flowers from the Convent garden, and 
for congregation the nuns and the girls modestly and de- 
murely veiled. But nothing was dainty about St. Joseph's, 
— men are as untidy in running a church as in keeping a 
house — it was not well kept, the flowers were artificial and 
tawdry, and the congregation was largely made up of 
shabby old Irishwomen. The priests — Jesuits — were 
mostly Italian, with those unpleasant habits of Italian 
priests that are a shock to the convent-bred American when 
she first goes to Italy. They had, however, the virtue of 
old friends, their faces were familiar, I had known them 
for years at the Convent which they had frequently visited 
and where, by special grace, they had refrained from some 
of the unpleasant habits that offended me at St. Joseph's. 

There was Father de Maria, tall, thin, with a wonder- 
ful shock of white hair, a fine ascetic face and a kindly 
smile, not adapted to shine in children's society — too much 
of a scholar I fancied though I may have been wrong — 
mid with an effect of severity which I do not think he 
meant, but which had kept me at a safe distance when he 
came to see us at Torresdale. But he had come, I could 
not remember the time when I liad not known him, and 
that was in his favour. 

There was Father Ardea, a small, shrinking, dark 
man, from whom also it was more comfortable to keep at a 



192 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

safe distance, so little had he to say and snch a trick of 
looking at you with an " Eh? Eh? " of expectation, as if 
he relied upon you to supply the talk he liad not at his own 
command. But I could have forgiven him worse, so 
pleasant a duty did he make of confession. His penances 
were light and his only comment was "Eh? Eh? mv 
child? But you didn't mean it! You didn't mean it!" 
until I longed to accuse myself of the Seven Deadly Sins 
with the LTnpardonable Sin thrown in, just to see if he 
would still assure me that I didn't mean it. 

There was Father Bobbelin — our corruption I fancy of 
Barbelin — a Frenchman, short and fat, sandy-haired, with 
a round smiling face: the most welcome of all. He was 
always very snuffy, and always ready to hand round his 
snufF-box if talk languished when he went out to walk 
with us, which I liked better than Father Ardea's em- 
barrassing "Eh? Eh?" It was to Father Bobbelin an 
inexhaustible joke, and the only other I knew him to 
venture upon resulted in so unheard-of a breach of dis- 
cipline that ever after we saw less of him and his snuff- 
box. He was walking with us down JNIulberry Avenue 
one afternoon, the little girls clustered about him as they 
were always sure to be, and the nun in charge a little 
behind with the bigger, more sedate girls. When we got 
to the end of the Avenue, the carriage gate leading straight 
out into the World was open as it had never been before, 
as it never was again. Father Bobbelin's fat shoulders 
shook with laughter. He opened the gate wider. " Now, 



A QUESTION OF CREED 193 

children," he said, "here's your chance. Run for it!" 
And we did, we ran as if for our lives, though no children 
could have loved their school better or wanted less to get 
away from it. One or two ran as far as the railroad, the 
most adventurous crossed it, and were making full tilt 
for the river before all were caught and brought back and 
sent to bed in disgrace. After that Father Bobbelin 
visited us only in oiu- class-room. 

And there were other priests whose names escape me, 
but not their home-like faces. Now and then Jesuits who 
gave Missions and who had conducted the retreats at the 
Convent, appeared at St. Joseph's, — Father Smarius, the 
huge Dutchman, so enormous they used to tell us at the 
Convent that he had never seen his feet for twenty years, 
who had baptized my Father and his family in the Con- 
vent chapel; and Father Boudreau, the silent, shy little 
Louisianian, whom I remember so well coming with Father 
Smarius one June day to bless, and sprinkle Holy Water 
over that big yellow and white house close to the Convent 
which my Father had taken for the summer; and Father 
Glackmeyer, and Father Coghlan, and with them others 
whose presence helped the more to fill St. Joseph's with the 
intimate convent atmosphere. 

IV 

These old friends and old associations took away from 
the uneasiness it might otherwise have given me to find the 
church, for which I had exchanged the Convent chapel, 

13 



194 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

hidden up an alley as if its existence were a sin. But over- 
look it as I might, this was the one important fact about 
St, Joseph's which, otherwise, had no particular interest. 
It did not count as architecture, it boasted of no beauty of 
decoration : an inconspicuous, commonplace building from 
every point of view, of which I consequently retain but the 
vaguest memory. As I write, I can see, as if it were be- 
fore me, the Convent chapel, its every nook and corner, 
almost its every stone, this altar here, that picture there, 
the confessional in the screened-off space where visitors sat, 
the dark step close to the altar railing where I carried my 
wrongs and my sorrows. But try as I may, I cannot see 
St. Joseph's as it was, cannot see any detail, nothing save 
the general shabbiness and untidiness that shocked my 
convent-bred eyes. Could it have appealed by its beauty, 
like the old Cathedrals of Europe, or, for that matter, like 
the old churches of Philadelphia, no doubt I should be able 
to recall it as vividly as the Convent chapel. Because I 
cannot, because it impressed me so superficially, I regret 
the more that I had not the sense to appreciate the interest 
it borrowed from the romance of history and the beauty 
of suffering — the history of the Catholic religion in Phila- 
delphia which I might have read in this careful hiding of 
its temple ; the suffering of the scapegoat among churches, 
obliged to keep out of sight, atoning for their intolerance 
in a desert of secrecy, letting no man know where its 
prayers were said or its services held. Catholics had to 
practise their religion like criminals skulking from the 




FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, SEVENTH STREET AND WASHINGTON SQUARE 



A QUESTION OF CREED 197 

law. Members of a Protestant church might dispute 
among tliemselves to the point of blows, but they never 
thought of interfering with the members of any other 
church, except the Catholic, against which they could all 
cheerfully join. There were times when the Friends, most 
tolerant of men, were influenced by this general hostility, 
and I rather think the worst moment in Penn's life was 
when he was forced to protest against the scandal of the 
Mass in his town of Brotherly Love. 

The marvel is that Catholics ventured out of their 
hiding-places as soon as they did. They had emerged so 
successfully by Revolutionary times that the stranger in 
Philadelphia could find his way to " the Romish chapel " 
and enjoy the luxury of knowing that he was not as these 
poor wretches who fingered their beads and chanted Latin 
not a word of which they understood. The Jesuits have 
the wisdom of their reputation. When they built their 
church the Colonies had for some years been the United 
States, and hatred was less outspoken, and persecution 
was more intermittent, but they believed discretion to be 
the better part of valour and the truest security in not 
challenging attack. That is why they built St. Joseph's 
in Willing's Alley where the visitor with a dramatic sense 
must be as thrilled by it as by the secret chapels and under- 
ground passages in old Elizabethan mansions and Scott's 
novels. Philadelphia gave the Jesuits a proof of their 
wisdom when, within a quarter of a century, Young 



198 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

America, in a playful moment, burnt down as much as it 
could of St. Michael's and St. Augustine's ; churches which 
had been built bravely and hopefully in open places. 
Young America believed in a healthy reminder to Catho- 
lics, that, if they had not been disturbed for some time, it 
was not because they did not deserve to be. 

Philadelphia had got beyond the exciting stage of in- 
tolerance before I was born. There were no delicious 
tremors to be had when I heard Mass at St. Joseph's or 
went to Vespers at St. INIary's. There was no ear alert 
for a warning of the approach of the enemy, no eye 
strained for the first wisp of smoke or burst of flame. With 
churches and convents everywhere — convents intruding 
even upon Walnut Street and Rittenhouse Square — ^with a 
big Cathedral in town and a big Seminary at Villanova, 
Catholics were in a fair way to forget it had ever been as 
dangerous for them as for the early Christians to venture 
from their catacombs. Their religion had become a tame 
affair, holding out no prospect of the martyr's crown. Only 
the social prejudice survived, but it was the more bitter to 
fight because, whether the end was victory or defeat, it 
appeared so inglorious a struggle to be engaged in. 

One good result there was of this social ostracism. I 
leave myself out of the argument. Religion, I have often 
heard it said, is a matter of temperament. As this story 
of my relations to Philadelphia seems to be resolving itself 
into a general confession, I must at least confess my cer- 



A QUESTION OF CREED 199 

tainty that I have not and never had the necessary tempera- 
ment, that, moreover, the necessary temperament is not to 
be had by any effort of will power, depending rather npon 
"the influence of the unknown powers." But I am not 
totally blind, nor was I in the old days when, many as were 
the things I did not see, my eyes were still open to the 
effect of social opposition on Catholics with the tempera- 
ment. It made them more devout, at times more defiant. 
I know churches that are in themselves alone a reward for 
faith and fidelity — who would not be a Catholic in the dim 
religious light of Chartres Cathedral, or in the sombre 
splendours of Seville and Barcelona? But St. Joseph's 
and St. INIary's, St. Patrick's and St. John's gave no such 
reward, nor did the Cathedral in its far-away imitation of 
the Jesuit churches of Italy and France. In these arid, 
unemotional interiors, emotion could not kindle piety 
which, if not fed by more spiritual stuff, was bound to 
flicker and go out. This is why the Philadelphian who, 
in those unattractive churches and in spite of the social 
price paid, remained faithful, was the most devout Catho- 
lic I have ever met at home or in my wanderings. 

V 

For his spiritual welfare, it might have been better had 
the conditions remained as I knew them. But even at 
that period, the signs of weakening in the social barrier 
must have jumped to my eyes had I had eyes for the fine 



200 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

shades. Catholics among themselves had begun to put up 
social barriers, so much further had Philadelphia travelled 
on the road to liberty. 

Religiously, one of their churches was as good as an- 
other, but not socially. St. Mark's, from its superior 
Episcopal heights, might look down equally upon St. 
Patrick's and St. John's, but the Catholic with a pew at 
St. John's did not at all look upon the Catholic with a seat 
at St. Patrick's as on the same social level as himself. St. 
Patrick's name alone was sufficient to attract an Irish 
congregation, and the Irish who then flocked to Philadel- 
phia were not the flower of Ireland's aristocracy. St. 
John's, by some unnamed right, claimed the Catholics of 
social pretensions — the excellence of its music may have 
strengthened its claim. I know that my Father, who was a 
religious man, did not object to having the comfort of 
religion strengthened by the charms of Gounod's ]\Iass 
well sung, and, at the last, he drifted from the Cathedral 
to St. John's. 

The Cathedral necessarily was above such distinctions, 
as a Cathedral should be, and it harboured an overflow 
from St. Patrick's and St. John's both. But it was the 
Cathedral, rather than St. John's, that did most to weaken 
the foundations of the social prejudice against the Catholic. 
The Bishop there was Bishop Wood, and Bishop Wood, 
like my Father a convert, was no Irish emigrant, no Italian 
missionary, but came from the same old family of Phila- 







OLD SWEDES' CHURCH 



A QUESTION OF CREED 203 

delphia Friends as J. Some people think that 
Quakerism and Catholicism are more in sympathy with 
each other than with other creeds because neither recog- 
nizes any half way, each going to a logical extreme. 
Whether Bishop Wood thought so, I am far from sure, 
but he had himself gone from one extreme to the other 
when he became a Catholic, and the religious step had its 
social bearing. With his splendid presence and splendid 
voice, he must have added dignity to every service at the 
Cathedral, but he did more than that: in Philadelphia eyes 
he gave it the sanction of Philadelphia respectability. The 
Catholic was no longer quite without Philadelphia's social 
pale. 

I had no opportunity, because of my long absence, to 
watch the gradual breakdown, but I saw that the barrier 
had fallen when I got back to Philadelphia. Never again 
will Philadelphia children think they are doing an odd 
thing when they go to JNIass, never again need the Phila- 
delphia girl fresh from the Convent fancy herself alone 
in the yawning gulf of evil that opens at the Convent gate. 
I should not be surprised if an eligible man from the Danc- 
ing Class or Assembly list can to-da}^ be picked up at the 
door of more than one Catholic church for the Sunday 
Walk on Walnut Street. St. John's has risen, new and 
resplendent, if ugly, from its ashes; St. Patrick's has 
blossomed forth from its architectural insignificance into 
an imposing Romanesque structure. The Cathedral has 



204 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

been new swept and garnished — not so large perhaps as I 
once saw it, for I have been to St. Paul's and St. Peter's 
and many a Jesuit church in the meanwhile, but more 
ornate, with altars and decorations that I knew not, and 
with Mr. Henry Thouron's design on one wall as a promise 
of further beauty to come. The difference confronted me 
at every step — and saddened me, though I coidd not deny 
that it meant improvement. But the change, as change, 
displeased me in a Philadelj^hia that ceases to be my Phila- 
delphia when it ceases to preserve its old standards and 
prejudices as jealously as its old monuments. For the 
sake of the character I loved, I could wish Philadelphia 
as far as ever from hope of salvation by anything save its 
own invincible ignorance. 



CHAPTER IX: THE FIRST AWAKENING 



I HAD been out, I do not remember how long, but 
long enough to confirm my belief in the Philadel- 
phia way of doing things as the only way, when I 
found that Philadelphia was involved in an enterprise 
for which its history might give the reason but could 
furnish no precedent. To Philadelphians who were older 
than I, or who had been in Philadelphia while I was get- 
ting through the business of education at the Convent, the 
Centennial Exposition probably did not come as so great 
a surprise. Having since had experience of how these 
matters are ordered, I can understand that there must have 
been some years of leading up to it. But I seem to have 
heard of it first within no time of its opening, and just as 
I had got used to the idea that Philadelphia must go on 
for ever doing things as it always had done them, because 
to do them otherwise would not be right or proper. 

The result was that, at the moment, I saw in the Cen- 
tennial chiefly a violent upheaval shaking the universe to 
the foundations, with Philadelphia emerging, changed, 
transformed, unrecognizable, plunging head-foremost into 
new-fangled amusements, adding new duties to the Phila- 
delphian's once all-sufRcing duty of being a Philadelphian, 
inventing new attractions to draw to its drowsy streets 

205 



206 OUR PHILx\DELPHIA 

people from the four quarters of the globe, and, more 
astounding, giving itself up to these innovations with zest. 
I looked on at the preparations, — as at most things, to 
my infinite boredom, — from outside: a perspective from 
which they appeared to me little more than a new form of 
social diversion. For they kept my gayer friends, who 
were well on the inside, busy going to Centennial balls at 
the Academy of Music in the Colonial dress which was as 
essential for admission as a Colonial name or a Colonial 
family tree, while I stayed at home and, seeing what lovely 
creatures powder and patches and paniers made of Phila- 
delphia girls with no more pretence to good looks than I, 
felt a little as I did when the coloured dignitary rang at 
our front door with the Assembly card that was not for 
me. And between the balls, the same friends were im- 
mersed in Centennial Societies and Centennial Committees 
and Centennial Meetings and Centennial Subscriptions 
and Centennial Petitions, Philadelphia women for the first 
time admitted, and pining for admission, into public 
affairs; while I was so far apart from it all that I re- 
member but one incident in connection with the Centennial 
orgy of work, and this as trivial as could be. When we 
moved into the Third Street house we had found in posses- 
sion a cat who left us in no doubt of her disapproval of our 
intrusion, but who tolerated us because of the convenience 
of the ground floor windows from which to watch for her 
enemies among the dogs of the neighbourhood, and for the 
comfort of certain cupboards upstairs during the infancy 




INDEPENDENCE HALL: THE ORIGINAL DESK ON WHICH THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE WAS SIGNED 
AND THE CHAIR USED BY THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS, JOHN HANCOCK, IN 1776 

(both on platform) 



THE FIRST AWAKENING 209 

of her kittens. She kept us at a respectful distance and 
we never ventured upon anj^ liberties with her. Those of 
our friends who did, heedless of her growls, were sure to 
regret it. Our family doctor carried the marks of her 
teeth on his hand for many a day. It happened that once, 
when two Centennial canvassers called, she was the first 
to greet them and was unfavourably impressed by the 
voluminous furs in which they were wrapped. When I 
came downstairs she was holding the hall, her eyes flam- 
ing, her tail five times its natural size, and I understood 
the prudence of non-interference. The canvassers had re- 
treated to the vestibule between the two front doors and, 
as I opened the inner door, another glance at the flaming 
eyes and indignant tail completed their defeat and they 
fled without explaining the object of their visit. I must 
indeed have been removed from the Centennial delirium 
and turmoil to have retained this absurd encounter as one 
of my most vivid memories. 

II 

Upon the Centennial itself I looked at closer quarters. 
I was as removed from it officially, but not quite so penni- 
less and friendless as never to have the chance to visit it. 
Inexperienced and untravelled as I was, it opened for me 
vistas hitherto undreamed of and stirred my interest as 
nothing in Philadelphia had until then. As I recall it, 
that long summer is, as it was at the time, a bewildering 
jumble of first impressions and revelations — Philadelphia 

14 



210 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

all chaos and confusion, functions and formalities, spec- 
tacles and sensations — buildings Philadelphia could not 
have conceived of in its sanity covering acres of its beauti- 
ful Park, a whole shanty town of huge hotels and cheap 
restaurants and side-shows sprung up on its outskirts — 
marvels in the buildings, amazing, foreign, unbelievable 
marvels, the Arabian Nights rolled into one — interminable 
drives in horriblj'- crowded street-cars to reach them — 
lunches of Vienna rolls and Vienna coffee in Vienna cafes, 
as unlike Jones's on Eleventh Street or Burns's on Fif- 
teenth as I could imagine — dinners in French restaurants 
that, after Belmont and Strawberry Mansion, struck me 
as typically Parisian though I do not suppose they were 
Parisian in the least — the flaring and glaring of millions 
of gas lamps under Philadelphia's tranquil skies — a de- 
lightful feeling of triumph that Philadelphia was the first 
American town to do what London had done, what Paris 
had done, and to do it so splendidly — ^burning heat, Phila- 
delphia apparently bent on proving to the unhappy visitor 
what the native knew too well, that, when it has a mind to, 
it can be the most intolerably hot place in the world — 
sweltering, demoralized crowds — unexpected descents 
upon a household as quiet as ours of friends not seen for 
years and relations never heard of — brilliant autumn days 
— an atmosphere of activity, excitement and exultation 
that made it good to be alive and in the midst of Centennial 
celebrations without bothering to seek in them a more 
serious end than a season's amusement. 




PHILADELPHIA FROM BELMONT 



THE FIRST AWAKENING 213 

III 
But, without bothering, I could not escape a dim per- 
ception that Philadelphia had not turned itself topsy-turvy 
to amuse me and the world. Things were in the air I 
could not get away from. The very words Centennial and 
Colonial were too new in my vocabulary not to start me 
thinking, httle given as I was to thinking when I could 
save myself the trouble. And however lightly I might be 
inclined to take the whole affair, the rest of Philadelphia 
was so far from underestimating it that probably the 
younger generation, used to big International Expositions 
and having seen the wonders of the Centennial eclipsed in 
Paris and Chicago and St. Louis and its pleasures rivalled 
in an ordinary summer playground like Coney Island or 
Willow Grove, must wonder at the innocence of Phila- 
delphia in making such a fuss over such an everyday 
affair. But in the Eighteen- Seventies the big Interna- 
tional Exposition was not an everyday affair. Europe 
had held only one or two, America had held none, Phila- 
delphia had to find out the way for itself, with the whole 
country watching, ready to jeer at the sleepy old town 
if it went wrong. As I look back, though I realize that 
the Centennial buildings were not architectural master- 
pieces—how could I help realising it with INIemorial Hall 
still out there in the Park as reminder? — though I realise 
that Philadelphia prosperity did not date from the Cen- 
tennial, that Philadelphians had not lived in a slough of 



214 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

inertia and ignorance until the Centennial pulled them 
out of it: all the same, I can see how fine an achievement 
it was, and how successful in jerking Philadel^jhians from 
their comfortable rut of indifference to everything going 
on outside of Philadelphia, or to whether there was an out- 
side for things to go on in. 

I know that I was conscious of the jerk in my little 
corner of the rut. The Centennial, for one thing, gave me 
my first object lesson in patriotism. There was no special 
training for the patriot when I was young — no school 
drilling, with flags, to national music. An American was 
an American, not a Russian Jew, a Slovak, or a Pole, and 
patriotism was supposed to follow as a matter of course. 
It did, but I fancy with many, as with me, after a passive, 
unintelligent sort of fashion. I knew about the Declara- 
tion of Independence, but had anybody asked for my 
opinion of it, I doubtless should have dismissed it as a dull 
page in a dull history book, a difficult passage to get by 
heart. But I could not go on thinking of it in that way 
when so remote an occasion as its hundredth birthday was 
sending Philadelphia off its head in this mad carnival 
of excitement. In little, as in big, matters I was con- 
stantly brought up against the fact that things did not 
exist simply because they were, but because something 
had been. An old time-worn story that amused the Phila- 
delphian in its day is of the American from another town, 
who, after listening to much Philadelphia talk, interrupted 
to ask: " But what is a Biddle? " I am afraid I should 



THE FIRST AWAKENING 215 

have been puzzled to answer. For a Biddle was a Biddle, 
just as Spruce Street was Spruce Street, just as Pliila- 
delphia was Philadelphia. That had been enough in all 
conscience for the Philadelphian, but the Centennial would 
not let it be enough for me any longer. 
. My first hint that Philadelphia and Spruce Street and 
a Biddle needed a past to justify the esteem in which we 
held them, came from the spectacle of Mrs. Gillespie 
towering supreme above Philadelphians with far more 
familiar names than hers at every Centennial ball and in 
every Centennial Society, the central figin-e in the Cen- 
tennial preparations and in the Centennial itself. I did 
not know her personally, but that made no difference. 
There was no blotting out her powerful presence, she 
pervaded the Centennial atmosphere. She remains in the 
foreground of my Centennial memories, a tall, gaunt 
woman, not especially gi-acious, apparently without a 
doubt of her right to her conspicuous position, ready to 
resent the effrontery of the sceptic who challenged it had 
there been a sceptic so daring, anything but popular, and 
yet her rule accepted unquestioningly for no better reason 
than because she was the descendant of Benjamin Frank- 
lin, and I could not help knowing that she was his de- 
scendant, for nobody could mention her without dragging 
in his name. It revolutionized my ideas of school and 
school books, no less than of Philadelphia. I had learned 
the story of Benjamin Franklin and the kite, just as I had 
learned the story of George Washington and the cherry 



216 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

tree, and of General Marion and the sweet potatoes, and 
other anecdotes of heroes invented to torment the young. 
And now here was Franklin turning out to be not merely 
the hero of an anecdote that bored every right-minded 
school-girl to death, but a person of such consequence 
that his descendant in the third or fourth generation had 
the right to lord it over Philadelphia. There was no 
getting away from that any more than there was from 
Mrs. Gillespie herself and, incidentally, it suggested a 
new reason for Biddies and Cadwalladers and Whartons 
and Morrises and Norrises and Logans and Philadelphia 
families with their names on the Assembly list. That they 
were the resplendent creatures Philadelphia thought them 
was not so elementary a fact as the shining of the sun in 
the heavens; they owed it to their ancestors just as Mrs. 
Gillespie owed her splendour to Franklin ; and an ancestor 
immediately became the first necessity in Philadelphia. 

The man who is preoccupied with his ancestors has a 
terrible faculty of becoming a snob, and Philadelphians for 
a while concerned themselves with little else. They de- 
voted every hour of leisure to the study of genealogy, they 
besieged the Historical Society in search of inconsiderate 
ancestors who had neglected to make conspicuous figures 
of themselves and so had to be hunted up, they left no 
stone unturned to prove their Colonial descent. It must 
have been this period that my Brother, Grant Robins, irri- 
tated with our forefathers for their mistake in settling in 
Virginia half a century before there was a Philadelphia 



i^^^'' 




THE DINING ROOM, STENTON 



THE FIRST AWAKENING 219 

to settle in and tlien making a half-way halt in JNIaryland, 
hurried down to the Eastern Shore to get together what 
material he could to keep us in countenance in the town 
of my Grandfather's adoption. It was soothing to find 
more than one Robins among the earliest settlers of Vir- 
ginia and mixed up with A'irginia affairs at an agreeably 
early date. But what wouldn't I have given to see our 
name in a little square on one of the early maps of the 
City of Philadelphia as I have since seen J.'s? And the 
interest in ancestors spread, and no Englishman could ever 
have been so eager to prove that he came over with the 
Conqueror as every American was to show that he dated 
back to William Penn, or the first Virginia Company, or 
the Dutch, or the Mayflower ; no Order of Merit or Legion 
of Honour could have conferred more glory on an Ameri- 
can than a Colonial Governor in the family; no aristocracy 
was more exclusive than the American founded on the new 
societies of Colonial Dames and Sons and Daughters of 
Pennsylvania and of every other State. 

It was preposterous, I grant, in a country whose first 
article of faith is that all men are born equal, but Ameri- 
cans could have stood a more severe attack of snobbish- 
ness in those days, the prevailing attitude of Americans at 
home being not much less irreverent than that of the Inno- 
cents Abroad. In Philadelphia it was not so much irrev- 
erence as indifference. The habit of Philadelphians to 
depreciate their town and themselves, inordinate as, 
actually, was their pride in both, had not been thrown oft'. 



220 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

Why they ever got into the habit remains to me and to 
every Philadelphian a problem. Some think it was be- 
cause the rest of the country depreciated them; some 
attribute it to Quaker influence, though how and why 
they cannot say ; and some see in it the result of the Phila- 
delpliia exclusiveness that reduces the social life of Phila- 
delphia to one small group in one small section of the 
town so that it is as small as village life, and has the village 
love of scandal, the village preoccupation with petty 
gossip, the little things at the front door blotting out the 
big things beyond. A more plausible reason is that Phila- 
delphians were so innately sure of themselves — so sure that 
Philadelphia was the town and Philadelphians the aristoc- 
racy of the world — ^that they could afford to be indifferent. 
But whatever the cause, this indifference, this deprecia- 
tion, was worse than a blunder, it was a loss in a town with 
a past so well worth looking into and being proud of and 
taking care of. 

A few Philadelphians had interested themselves in 
their past, otherwise the Historical Society would not have 
existed, but they were distressingly few. I can honestly 
say that up to the time of the Centennial it had never 
entered into my mind that the past in Philadelphia had a 
value for every Philadelphian and that it was every Phila- 
delphian's duty to help preserve any record that might 
survive of it — that the State House, the old churches, the 
old streets where I took my daily walks were a possession 
Philadelphia should do its best not to part with — and I 



THE FIRST AWAKENING 221 

was such a mere re-echo of Phihulelphia ideas and prej- 
udices that I know most Philadelj^hians were as ignorant 
and as heedless. J?ut ahnost the first effort of the new 
Dames and Sons and Daughters was to protect the old 
architecture, the outward sign and symbol of age and the 
aristocracy of age, and they made so much noise in doing 
so that even I heard it, even I became conscious of a re- 
search as keen for a past, or a genealogy in the familiar 
streets and the familiar buildings as in the archives of His- 
torical Societies. 

If the Centennial had done no more for Philadelphia 
than to put Philadelphians to this work, it would have 
done enough. But it did do more. The pride of family, 
dismissed by many as pure snobbishness, awoke the sort 
of patriotism that Philadelphia, with all America, was 
most in need of if the real American was not to be swept 
away before the hordes of aliens beginning then to invade 
his country. In my opinion, the Colonial Dames, for all 
their follies, are doing far more to keep up the right 
American spirit than the flaunting of the stars and stripes 
in the alien's face and the lavishing upon him of the 
Government's paternal attention. The question is how 
long they can avoid the pitfall of exaggeration. 

IV 

If there was one thing in those days I knew less of than 
the past in Philadelphia, it was the present outside of it. 
Of my own country my knowledge was limited to an 



222 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

occasional trip to New York, an occasional visit to Rich- 
mond and Annapolis, an occasional summer month in 
Cape May and Atlantic City. Travelling is not for the 
poor. Rich Philadelphians travelled more, but from no 
keen desire to see their native land. The end of the 
journey was usually a social fimction in Washington or 
Baltimore, in New A'ork or Boston, upon which their 
presence conferred distinction, though they would rather 
have dispensed with it than let it interfere with the always 
more important social functions at home. Or else the heat 
of summer drove them to those seashore and mountain 
resorts where they could count upon being with other 
Philadelphians, and the winter cold sent them in Lent 
to Florida, when it began to be possible to carry all Phila- 
delphia there with them. 

]\Iy knowledge of the rest of the world was more 
limited. I had been in France, but when I was such a 
child that I remembered little of it except the nuns in the 
Convent at Paris where I went to school, and the Garden 
of the Tuileries I looked across to from the Hotel Meurice. 
Nor had going abroad as yet been made a habit in Phila- 
delphia. There was nothing against the Philadelphian 
going who chose to and who had the money. It defied no 
social law. On the contrary, it was to his social credit, 
though not indispensable as the Grand Tour was to the 
Englishman in the Eighteenth Century. I remember 
when my Grandfather followed the correct tourist route 
through England, France, and Switzerland, his children 




DOWN THP: aisle at CHRIST CHURCH 



THE FIRST AWAKENING 225 

considered it an event of sufficient importance to be com- 
memorated by printing, for family circulation, an elabor- 
ately got up volume of the eminently commonplace letters 
he had written home— a tribute, it is due to him to add, 
that met with his great astonishment and complete dis- 
approval. I can recall my admiration for those of my 
friends who made the journey and my regret that I had 
made it when I was too young to get any glory out of it; 
also, my delight in the trumpery little alabaster figures 
from Naples and carved wood from Geneva and filigree 
jewellery from the Rue de Rivoli they brought me back 
from their journey: the wholesale distribution of presents 
on his return being the heavy tax the traveller abroad paid 
for the distinction of having crossed the Atlantic— a tax, 
I believe, that has sensibly been done away with since the 
Philadelphian's discovery of the German Bath, the Lon- 
don season, and the economy of Europe as reasons for 
going abroad every summer. 

I was scarcely more familiar with the foreigner than 
with his country. Philadelphia had Irish in plenty, as 
many Germans as beer saloons, or so I gathered from the 
names over the saloon doors, and enough Italians to sell 
it fruit and black its boots at street corners. But other- 
Mdse, beyond a rare Chinaman with a pigtail and a rarer 
Englishman on tour, the foreigner was seldom seen in 
Philadelphia streets or in Philadelphia parlours. In early 
days Philadelphia had been the first place the distinguished 
foreigner in the country made for. It was the most im- 

15 



226 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

portant town and, for a time, the capital. But after Wash- 
ington claimed the diplomat and New York strode ahead 
in commerce and size and shipping, Philadelphia was too 
near each for the traveller to stop on his way between 
them, unless he was an actor, a lecturer, or somebody who 
could make money out of Philadelphia. 

I feel sorry for the sophisticated young Philadelphian 
of to-day who cannot know the emotion that was mine when, 
of a sudden, the Centennial dumped down " abroad " right 
into Philadelphia, and the foreigner was rampant. The 
modern youth saunters into a World's Fair as casually 
as into a Market Street or Sixth Avenue Department 
Store, but never had the monotony of my life been 
broken by an experience so extraordinary as when the 
easy-going street-car carried me out of my world of red 
brick into the heart of England, and France, and Ger- 
jiiany, and Italy, and Spain, and China, and Japan, where 
I rubbed elbows with yellow Orientals in brilliant silks, 
and with soldiers in amazing uniforms — I who had seen 
our sober United States sokhers only on parade — and with 
people who, if they wore ordinary clothes, spoke all the 
languages under the sun. It was extraordinary even to 
meet so many Americans who were not Philadelphians, 
all talking American with to me a foreign accent, extra- 
ordinary to see such familiar things as china, glass, silks, 
stuffs, furniture, carpets, transformed into the unfamiliar, 
unlike anything 1 had ever seen in Chestnut Street win- 



THE FIRST AWAKENING 227 

dows or on Chestnut Street counters, so extraordinary tliat 
the most insignificant details magnified themselves into 
miracles, to the mere froth on top of the cup of Vienna 
coffee, to the fatuous song of a little Frenchman in a 
side-show, so that to this day, if 1 could turn a tune, I 
could still sing the "Ah! Ah! Nicolas!" of its foolish 
refrain. 

V 
Travelling, I should have seen all the Centennial had 
to show and a thousand times more, but slowly and by 
degrees, losing the sense of the miraculous with each new 
marvel. The Centennial came as one comprehensive 
revelation — overwhelming evidence that the Philadelphia 
way was not the only way. And this I think was a good 
thing for me, just as for Philadelphia it was a healthy 
stimidus. But the Centennial did not give me a new belief 
in exchange for the old; it did nothing to alter my life, 
nothing to turn my sluggish ambition into active channels. 
And big as it was, it was not as big as Philadelphia 
thought. I do believe that Philadelphians who had helped 
to make it the splendid success it proved, looked upon it 
as no less epoch-making than the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence which it commemorated. But epoch-making as 
it unquestionably was, it was not so epoch-making as all 
that. For some years Philadelphians had a way of saying 
" before " and " after " the Centennial, much as South- 
erners used to talk of "before" and "after" the War: 



228 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

with the difference that for Philadelphians all the good 
dated from " after." But manufacturing and commerce 
had been heard of " before." Cramp's shipyard did not 
wait for its first commission until the Centennial, neither 
did Baldwin's Locomotive Works, nor the factories in 
Kensington; Philadelphia was not so dead commercially 
that it was out of mere compliment important railroads 
made it the chief centre on their route. All large Inter- 
national Kxpositions are bound to do good by the increased 
knowledge that comes with them of what the world is pro- 
ducing and by the incentive this knowledge is to competi- 
tion, and as the Centennial was the first held in America 
it probably accomplished more for the country than those 
that followed. But I do not have to be an authority on 
manufacture and commerce to see that they flourished 
before the Centennial; I have learned enough about art 
since to know that its existence was not first revealed 
to Philadelphia by the Centennial. The Exhibition had 
an influence on art which I am far from undervaluing. Its 
galleries of paintings and prints, drawings and sculptures, 
were an aid in innumerable ways to artists and students 
who previously had had no facilities for seeing a rej)re- 
sentative collection. It threw light on the arts of design 
for the manufacturer. But we knew a thing or two about 
beauty down in Philadelphia before 1876, though beauty 
was a subject to which we had ceased to pay much atten- 
tion, and from the Centennial we borrowed too many 
tastes and standards that did not belong to us. It set 




THE BRIDGE ACROSS MARKET STREET FROM BROAD STREET STATION 



THE FIRST AWAKENING ^31 

Philadelpliia talking an appalling lot of rubbish about art, 
and the new affectation of interest was more deplorable 
than the old frank indifference. 

1 was as ignorant of art as the child unborn, but not 
more ignorant than the average Philadelphian. The old 
obligatory visits to the Academy had made but a fleeting 
impression and I ne\ er repeated them when the obligation 
rested solely with me. 1 had never met an artist, never 
been in a studio. The result was that the Art Galleries 
at the Centennial left me as blank and bewildered as the 
Hall of Machinery. Of all the paintings, the one I re- 
membered was Luke Fildes's picture of a milkmaid which 
I could not forget because, in a glaring, plush-framed 
chromo-lithograph, it reappeared promptly in Philadel- 
phia dining- and bedrooms, the most popular picture of 
the Centennial — a popularity in which I can discern no 
signs of grace. Nor can I discern them in the Eastlake 
craze, in the sacrifice of reps and rosew^ood to ^Morris and 
of Berlin ^vork to crewels, in the outbreak of spinning- 
wheels and milking-stools and cat's tails and Japanese 
fans in the old simple, dignified Philadelphia parlour; in 
the nightmare of wall-papers with dadoes going half- 
way up the wall and friezes coming halfway down, and 
every square inch crammed full of pattern; in the pretence 
and excess of decoration that made the early Victorian 
ornament, we had all begun to abuse, a delight to the eye 
in its innocent unpretentiousness. And if to the Cen- 
tennial we owe the multiplication of our art schools, how 



OUR PHILADELPHIA 

many more artists have come out of them, how much more 
work that counts? 

However, the good done by the Centennial is not to be 
sought in the solid profits and losses that can be weighed 
in a practical balance. It went deeper. Philadelphia 
was the better for being impressed with the reason of its 
own importance which it had taken on faith, and for being 
reminded that the world outside of Philadelphia was not 
a howling wilderness. I, individually, gained by the 
widening of my horizon and the stirring of my interest. 
But the Centennial did not teach me how to think about, 
or use, what I had learned from it. When it was at an end, 
I returned placidly to my occupation of doing nothing. 



CHAPTER X; THE MIRACLE OF WORK 



IN the story of my life in Philadelphia, and my love 
for the town which grew with my knowledge of it, my 
beginning to work was more than an awakening: 
it was an important crisis. For work first made me know 
Philadelphia as it is under the surface of calm and the 
beauty of age, first made me realize how much it offers 
besides the social adventure. 

Personally, the Centennial had left me where it found 
me. It had amused me vastly, but it had inspired me with 
no desire to make active use of the information and hints 
of which it had been so prodigal. My interest had been 
stimulated, awakened, but I did not know Philadelphia 
any the better for it, I did not love Philadelphia any the 
better. I had got no further than I was in my scheme 
of existence, into which work, or research, or interest, on 
my part had not yet entered, but I had reached a point 
where that aimless scheme was an insufferable bore. From 
the moment I began to work, I began to see everything 
from the standpoint of work, and it is wonderful what a 
fresh and invigorating standpoint it is. I began to see that 
everything was not all of course and matter of fact, that 
everything was worth thinking about. Work is sometimes 

233 



234 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

said to help people to put things out of their minds, but it 
helps them more when it puts things into their minds, and 
this is what it did for me. Through work I discovered 
Philadelphia and myself together. 

II 

It strikes me as one of the little ironies of life that for 
the first inducement to work, and therefore the first in- 
centive to my knowledge and love of Philadelphia, I should 
have been indebted to my LTncle, Charles Godfrey Leland, 
who, in 1880, when the Centennial excitement was subsid- 
ing, settled again in Philadelphia after ten years abroad, 
chiefly in England. Philadelphia welcomed him with its 
usual serenity, betrayed into no expression of emotion by 
the home-coming of one of its most distinguished citizens 
who, in London, had been received with the open arms 
London, in expansive moments, extends to the lion from 
America. The contrast, no doubt, was annoying, and my 
LTncle, of whom patience could not be said to be the pre- 
dominating virtue, was accordingly annoyed and, on his 
side, betrayed into anything but a serene expression of 
his annoyance. Many smaller slights irritated him further 
until he worked himself up into the belief that he detested 
Philadelphia, and he was apt to be so outspoken in criti- 
cism that he succeeded in convincing me, anyway, that he 
did. Later, when I read his Memoirs, I found in them 
passages that suggest the charm of Philadelphia as it has 
not been suggested by any other writer I know of, and 




STATK HOUSE YARD 



THE iVIIRACLE OF WORK 237 

that he could not have written had he not felt for the town 
an affection strong enough to withstand that town's easy 
indifference. But during the few years he spent in Phila- 
delphia after his return he was uncommonly successful in 
hiding his affection, a fact which did not add to his 
popularitj\ 

From his talk, I might have been expected to borrow 
nothing save dislike for Philadelphia. But his influence 
did not begin and end with his talk. There never was a 
man — except J. — who had such a contempt for idle- 
ness and such a talent for work. He could not endure 
people about him who did not work and, as I was anxious 
to enjoy as much of his company as I could, for I had 
found nobody in Philadelphia so entertaining, and as by 
work I might earn the money to pay for the independence 
I wanted above all things, I found myself working before 
I knew it. 

I had my doubts when he set me to drawing but, my 
time being wholly my own and frequently hanging drearily 
on my hands, my ineffectual attempts to make spirals and 
curves with a pencil on a piece of paper, attempts that 
could not by the wildest stretch of imagination be supposed 
to have either an artistic or a financial value, did not strike 
me as a disproportionate price for the pleasure and 
stimulus of his companionship. Besides, he held the com- 
fortable belief that anybody who willed to do it, could do 
anything — accomplishment, talent, genius reduced by him 
to a question of will. His will and mine combined, how- 



238 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

ever, could not make a decorative artist of me, but he was 
so kind as not to throw me over for ruthlessly shattering 
his favourite theory. He insisted that I should write if I 
could not draw. 

I had my doubts about writing too. I have confessed 
that I was not given to thinking and therefore I had noth- 
ing in particular to say, nor were words to say it in at my 
ready disposal, for, there being one or two masters of talk 
in the immediate home circle, I had cultivated to the ut- 
most my natural gift of silence. Nor could I forget two 
literary ventures made inmiediately upon my leaving the 
Convent, before the blatant conceit of the prize scholar 
had been knocked out of me — one, an essay on Fran9ois 
Villon, my choice of a maiden theme giving the measure 
of my intelligence, the second a short story re-echoing the 
last love tale I had read — both MSS., neatly tied with 
brown ribbon to vouch for a masculine mind above feminine 
pinks and blues, confidently sent to Harper's and as con- 
fidently sent back with the Editor's thanks and no delay. 
But my Uncle would not let me off. I must stick at my 
task of writing or cease to be his companion, and so relapse 
into my old Desert of Sahara, thrown back into the colour- 
less life of a Philadelphia girl who did not go out and who 
had waited to marry longer than her parents thought con- 
siderate or correct. Of all my sins, of none was I more 
guiltily conscious than my failure to oblige my family in 
this respect, for of none was I more frequently and un- 
comfortably reminded by my family. I scarcely ever went 



THE MIRACLE OF WORK 239 

to see my Grandmother at this period that from her 
favourite pereh on the huuHng outside tlie dining-room, 
she did not look at me anxiously and reproachfully and 
ask, " Any news for me, my dearJ* " and she did not have 
to tell me there was but one piece of news she cared to 
hear. 

Luckily, writing, my substitute for marriage, was an 
occupation 1 was free to take up if I chose, as the work it 
involved met with no objection from my Father. It was 
only when work took a girl where the world could not help 
seeing her at it, that the Philadelphia father objected. To 
write in the privacy of a third-story front bedroom, or of a 
back parlour, seemed a ladylike way of wasting hours that 
might more profitably have been spent in paying calls and 
going to receptions. If this waste met with financial 
return, it could be hushed up and the world be none the 
wiser. The way in which my friends used to greet me 
after I was fairly launched is characteristic of the Phila- 
delphia attitude in the matter — " always scribbling away, 
I suppose? " they would say with amiable condescension. 

I could not dismiss my scribbling so jauntily. The 
record of my struggles day by day might help to keep out 
of the profession of journalism and book-making many a 
young aspirant as ardent as I was, and with as little to 
say and as few words to say it in. Experience has taught 
me to feel, much as Gissing felt, about the " heavy-laden 
who sit down to the cursed travail of the pen," but no- 
body could have made me feel that way then, and I am not 



240 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

sure I should care to have missed my struggles, exhausting 
and heart-rending as they were. During my apprentice- 
shijD when nothing, not so much as a newspaper paragraph, 
came from my mountain of labour, the Philadelj^hia sur- 
face of calm told gloomily on my nerves. Ready to lay 
the blame anywhere save on my sluggish brain, and moved 
by my Uncle's vehement denunciations, I vowed to my- 
self a hundred times that a sleepy place, a dead place, like 
Philadelphia did not give anybody the chance to do any- 
tliing. I changed my point of view when at last my 
" scribbling away " got into print. 

Ill 

My first appearance was with a chapter out of a larger 
work upon which I had been engaged for months. My 
Uncle, whose ideas were big, had insisted that I must begin 
straight off with a book, something monumental, a 
magnum opus; no writer was known who had not written a 
book; and to be known was half the battle. I was in the 
state of mind when I would have agreed to publish a 
masterpiece in hieroglyphics had he suggested it, and I 
arranged with him to set to work upon my book then and 
there, though I was decidedly puzzled to know with what 
it was to deal. I think he was too, my literary resources 
and tendencies not being of the kind that revealed them- 
selves at a glance. But he declared that there was not 
a subject upon which a book could not be written if one 
only went about it in the right way, and in a moment of 



THE MIRACLE OF WORK 241 

inspiration, seeking the particular subject suitable to my 
paTticular needs, lie suddenly, and to me to this day alto- 
gether incomprehensibly, hit upon JVlischief. There, now, 
was a subject to make one's reputation on, none could be 
more original, no author had touched it — what did I think 
of. JNlischief^ 

What did I think? Had I been truthful, I should have 
said that I thought JMischief was the special attribute of 
the naughty child who was spanked well for it if he got his 
deserts. But I was not truthful. I said it was the subject 
of subjects, as I inclined to believe it was before I was 
done with it, by which time I had persuaded myself to see 
in it the one force that made the world go round — the in- 
centive to evolution, the root of the philosophies of the 
ages, the clue to the mystery of life. 

My days were devoted to the study of Mischief and, 
for the purpose, more carefully divided up and regulated 
than they ever had been at the Convent. Hours were set 
aside for research — I see myself and my sympathetic 
Uncle overhauling dusty dictionaries and encyclopjedias 
at the long table in the balcony of the dusty Mercantile 
Library where nobody dreamed of disturbing us; I see 
him at my side during shorter visits to the Philadelphia 
Library where we were forever running up against people 
we knew who did disturb us most unconscionably; I see 
him tramping with me down South Broad Street to the 
Ridgway Library, that fine mausoleum of the great collec- 
tions of James Logan and Dr. Rush, where our coming 

16 



242 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

awoke the attendants and exposed their awkwardness in 
waiting upon unexpected readers, and brought ^Mr. Lloyd 
Smith out of his private room, excited and delighted 
actually to see somebody in the huge and well-appointed 
building besides himself and his staff. Hours were re- 
served for reading at home, for it turned out that I could 
not possibly arrive at the definition of ^Mischief without 
a stupendous amount of reading in a stupendous variety 
of books of any and all kinds from Mother Goose to the 
Vedas and the Koran, from Darwin to Eliphas Levi. 
Hours, and they were the longest, were consecrated to my 
writing-table, putting the results of research and reading 
into words, defining IMischief in its all-embracing, universe- 
covering aspect, hewing the phrases from my unwilling 
brain as the blocks of marble are hewn out of the quarry. 
As I write, my old MSS. rises before me like a ghost, a dis- 
orderly ghost, erased, rewritten, pieces added in, pieces 
cut out, every scratched and blotted line bearing testimony 
to the toil that produced it. I can see now that I would 
have done better to begin with a more obvious theme, com- 
ing more within my limited knowledge and vocabulary. 
My task was too laborious for the fine frenzy, or the in- 
spired flights, reputed to be the reward of the literary life. 
It was all downright hard labour, and so coloured my 
w^iole idea of the business of writing, that I have never 
yet managed to sit down to my day's work without the 
feeling which I imagine must be the navvy's as he starts 
out for his day's digging in the streets. 



THE MIRACLE OE WORK 243 

In the course of time order grew out of the chaos. A 
chapter of my monumental work on ^Mischief was finished. 
It was made ready in a neat copy with hardly an erasure 
and, having an air of completeness in itself, was sent as a 
separate article to Lippincotfs Magazine, for I decided 
magnanimously that, as I was a Philadelphian, Philadel- 
phia should have the first chance. I had no doubts of it as 
a prophetic utterance, as a world-convidsing message, but 
the Editor of Lippincotfs had. He refused it. 

How it hurt, that i3rompt refusal! All my literary 
hopes came toppling over and I saw myself condemned to 
the old idleness and dependence. But our spirits when we 
are young go up as quickly as they go down. I recalled 
stories I had heard of great men hawking about their MSS. 
from publisher to publisher. Carlyle, I said to myself, had 
suffered and almost every writer of note — it was a sign of 
genius to be refused. Therefore, — the logic of it was 
clear and convincing — the refusal proved me a genius! 
A more substantial reassurance was the publication of the 
same article, done over and patched up and with the fine 
title of Mischief in the Middle Ages, in the Atlantic 
Monthly a very few months later. And when, on top of 
this, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, the Editor of the Atlantic, 
wrote and told me he would be pleased to have further 
articles from me; when, in answer to a letter my Uncle 
had insisted on my writing, Oliver Wendell Holmes 
promised me his interest in Mischief as I proposed to de- 
fine it, I saw the world at my feet where, to my sorrow. 



244 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

I have never seen it since that first fine moment of elation. 
The spectacle of myself in print set Philadelphia danc- 
ing before my eyes and turned the world a bit unsteady. 
But it did not relieve the labour of writing. Within the 
next year or two seven or eight chapters did get done and 
were published as articles in the Atlantic ^ but the world is 
still the poorer for the magnum opus that was to bring me 
fame. The fact was that in the making, it brought me 
mighty little money. My first cheque only whetted my 
appetite, but, in fairness to myself I must explain, through 
no more sordid motive than my desire to become my own 
bread-winner. The newspapers offered a wider scope at 
less expense of time and labour, and my Uncle not only 
relaxed so far as to allow me intervals from the bigger 
undertaking for simpler tasks, but gave me the benefit of 
his experience as a newspaper man. In the old days, 
before he had gone to live in London, he had had the run 
of almost every newspaper office in town, and he opened 
their doors for me. Thanks to his introduction, Philadel- 
phia, at this stage of my progress, conspired to put work 
into my hands, and writing for Philadelphia papers taught 
me in a winter more about Philadelphia than I had learned 
in all the years I had already spent there. I marvelled that 
I could have thought it dead when it was so alive. I seemed 
to feel it quiver under my feet at every step, shaking me 
into speed, and filling me with pity for the sedate pace at 
which my Father and the Philadelphians of his generation 
walked through its pulsating streets. 



THE MIRACLE OF WORK 245 

IV 
]VIy first newspaper commissions came from the Press 
and adventure accompanied them — the adventure of busi- 
ness letters in my morning's mail, of proofs, of visits to the 
office — adventures that far too soon became the common- 
places of my busy days as journalist. But my outlook 
upon life in Philadelphia had, up till then, been bounded by 
the brick walls of a Spruce Street house, and the editorial 
office, that holds no surprise for me now, held nothing save 
surprise when I was first summoned to it. I was be- 
wildered by the disorder, stunned by the noise — boys com- 
ing and going, letters and telegrams pouring in, piles of 
proofs mounting up on the desk, baskets overflowing with 
MSS., floors strewn with papers, machinery throbbing 
close by, a heavy smell of tobacco over everything, and in 
the midst of the confusion — lounging, working, answering 
questions, tearing open letters and telegrams, correcting 
proof, and yet managing to talk with me, — ^Moses P. 
Handy, the editor, a red man in my memory of him, red 
hair, red beard, red cheeks, whose cordiality I could not 
flatter myself was due to his eagerness for my contribu- 
tions, so engrossed was he in talking of the Eastern Shore 
of Maryland from which he came and in which my family 
had made their prolonged stay on the way from Virginia 
to Philadelphia. The Eastern Shore may be a good place 
to come away from, but the native never forgets that he 
did come from it and he never fails to hail his fellow exile 
as brother. 



246 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

My next commission I owed to the Evening Tele- 
graph, for which I made a remarkable journey to Atlantic 
City : a a oyage of discovery, though the report of it did not 
paralyse the Philadelphia public. I was deeply impressed 
by my exercise of my faculty of observation thus tested 
on familiar ground, but I am afraid it left the Editor in- 
different, and, as in his case the Eastern Shore was not a 
friendly link between us, he expressed no desire for a 
second article or for a second visit. I have regretted it 
since, the Editor being Clarke Davis, whom not to know 
was, I believe, not to have arrived so far in Philadelphia 
journalism as I liked to think I had. 

A more remarkable journey followed to New York 
for I wish I could remember what paper; or perhaps it is 
just as well I cannot, the adventure adding to the reputa- 
tion neither of the paper nor of myself. The object was to 
attend the press vicM^ of an important exhibition of paint- 
ings, and at that stage of my education I doubt if I could 
have told a Rembrandt from a Rubens, much less a Ken- 
yon Cox from a Church, a Chase from a Blum, which was 
more immediately to the point. I had my punishment on 
the spot, for my hours in the Gallery maj'^ be counted the 
most humiliating of my life. My ignorance would not let 
me lose sight of it for one little second. J. had gone with 
me — how I came to know him I mean to tell further on — 
but he had no press ticket, a stern man at the door refused 
to admit him without one, and I was alone in my incom- 







^M, ' \^ 



'V-''' 



^ Vi > { 














THE PENITENTIARY 



THE INIIRACLE OF WORK 249 

petencv to wrestle with it as I could. Had he not returned 
with nie to Philadelphia in the afternoon and devoted 
the interval in the train to throwing light upon my obscure 
and agonised notes, my copy could not have been delivered 
that evening as agreed. 1 know now that the paper would 
have come out all the same the next morning, but in my 
misery it did not seem possible that it could, and besides 
I was from the first, as through my many years of journal- 
ism, scrupulous to be on time with my copy and to keep to 
my agreements. That was my first experience in art 
criticism. I have tried to atone for it by years of con- 
scientious work, but few Philadelphia papers can say as 
much for themselves. In those I see from time to time, the 
art criticism usually reads as if Philadelphia editors had 
lost nothing of their old amiability in handing it over to 
young ladies to get their journalistic training on. 

I was given also my chance in two news^^aper ventures 
Philadelphia made in the early Eighteen-Eighties. One 
was the American, a weekly on the lines of the New York 
Nation. Mr. Howard Jenkins, the editor, sent me books 
for review, and not the first baby, not the first baby's first 
tooth, could be as extraordinary a phenomenon as the first 
book sent for the purpose from the editorial office. ^line, 
as I have never forgotten, as I never could forget, was 
Howard Pyle's Robin Hood, and when ;Mr. Jenkins wrote 
me that " Mr. Pyle's folks " were pleased with what I had 
written, I thought I had got to the very top of the tree 



250 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

of journalism. That I had got no further than a step from 
the bottom, and upon that had none too secure a foothold, 
I was reminded when the second book for review lay open 
before me. 

The other venture was Our Continent, also a weekly, 
but illustrated, edited by Judge Tourgee. Of my con- 
tributions, I remember chiefly an article on Shop Win- 
dows, which suggests that I was busy with what I might 
call a more pretentious kind of reporting. My subjects 
and my manner of treating them may have been what 
they were, — of no special value to anybody but myself. 
But to myself I cannot exaggerate their value. I was 
learning from them all the time. 

It was an education just to learn what a newspaper 
was. Heretofore I had accepted it as a thing that came 
of itself, arriving in the morning with the milk and the 
rolls for breakfast. I knew as little of its origin as the 
town boy knew of where the milk comes from in the Punch 
story that I do not doubt was old when Punch was young. 
Milk he had always seen poured from a can, our newspaper 
we had always had from the nearest news-agent. It was 
very simple. A newspaper appeared on the breakfast- 
table of a well-regulated Philadelphia house just as the 
water ran when the tap was turned on in the bath-room, or 
the gas burned when lit by a match. But after one article, 
after one visit to a newspaper office, after one journey to 
Atlantic City or Xew York, the newspaper did not seem 
so simple. I began to understand that it would not have 




ON THE READING AT SIXTEENTH STREET 



THE MIRACLE OF WORK 253 

got as far as Spruce Street had it not been for an army 
of people writing, printing, correcting proof, tearing from 
one end of the town — of the world — to the other ; without 
colossal machinery throbbing night and day, without an 
immeasurable consumption of tobacco. I began to under- 
stand the organization required to bring the army of 
people and the colossal machines into such perfect har- 
mony that the daily miracle of the newspaper on the break- 
fast-table might be worked— to understand too that the 
miracle-working organization had not been created in a 
day, that behind the daily paper was not merely the toiling 
of its staff and its machines but a long history of striving, 
experiment, development. 

I cannot say I went profoundly into the history, I was 
too engrossed in contributing my delightful share to the 
newspaper as it was, but to go superficially sufficed to show 
me in Philadelphia a spirit of enterprise altogether new 
to me. I had discovered only shortly before Philadelphia 
as the scene of the first Colonial Congress, and the Dec- 
laration of Independence, and the first big International 
Exposition in America, and now I added to these other 
discoveries the fact that Philadelphia had been the first 
American town to publish a daily paper, the last discovery 
bringing me face to face with Benjamin Franklin who, it 
appeared, besides flying that tiresome kite and being the 
ancestor of :Mrs. Gillespie, was the first printer and pub- 
lisher of the paper that set an example for all America. 
Tranquil the Philadelphian was by repute, but he rolled 



254 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

up his sleeves and pitched in when the moment came. 
Philadelphia's famous calm was but skin deep over its 
seething mass of workers, its energy, its toiling, its 
triumph. When I reflected on what was going on at night 
in every newspaper office in town, it seemed to me as un- 
believable that, on the verge of this volcano of work, Phila- 
delphians could keep on dancing at parties, at the Dancing 
Class, at the Assembly, as that men and women should 
have danced at Brussels on the eve of Waterloo. And 
newspaper-making was one only of Philadelphia's in- 
numerable industries. That thought gave me the scale of 
the labour that goes to keep the machinery of life running. 

V 

Of some of the other industries I got to know a little. 
My Uncle who, as I have said, was a man of ideas and 
who had his fair proportion of Philadelphia energy, in- 
cluded among his many interests the subject of education. 
He deplored existing systems and methods. My belief 
is that the systems and methods might be of the best and 
education would still be a mistake, vulgarizing the multi- 
tude to whom it does not belong and encouraging in them 
a prejudice against honest work. My Uncle did not think 
as I do, — that I do not think now as he did frightens me as 
a disloyalty to his memory. But he could not overlook the 
distaste for manual work that had grown out of too much 
attention to books and as he never let his theories exhaust 



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LOCUST STREET EAST FROM BRt)AU STREET 



THE MIRACLE OF WORK 257 

themselves in words, he lost no time in persuading the 
Board of Education to put this particular one to a practi- 
cal test. Doubts of their methods had assailed the Board, 
but no way out of the difficulty had been suggested until 
he came and said, " Set your children, your boys and girls, 
who are forgetting how to use their hands, to work at the 
JNIinor Arts." It struck them as a suggestion that 
warranted the experiment anyway, especially as the cost 
would be comparatively small. INIy Uncle had been back 
in Philadelphia not much more than a year when classes 
were put in his charge and a schoolroom — ^the school- 
house at Broad and Locust — at his disposal, and he 
inaugurated the study of the Arts and Crafts in Philadel- 
phia with the Industrial Art School, as he had in London 
with the Home Arts. His sole payment was the pleasure 
of the experiment, a pleasure which few theorists succeed 
in securing. I, however, was paid by the City in solid 
dollars and cents for the fine amateurish inefficiency with 
which I helped him to manage the classes, recommended 
by him, whose consideration was as practical for my 
pockets which the Atlantic, backed by newspapers, had not 
filled to repletion. 

This is not the place for the history of his experiment. 
It is known. The school has passed from the experimental 
stage into a permanent institution, though in the passing 
my Uncle has been virtually forgotten, — ^often the fate of 
the man who sets a ball of reform rolling. Of all this I 

17 



258 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

have elsewhere made the record. I am at present con- 
cerned with the influence the school had upon me and the 
unexpected extent to which it widened my knowledge of 
Philadelphia and Philadelphia activities. 

How Philadelphia was educated was not a question 
that had kept me awake at nights. The Philadelphia girl 
of my acquaintance, if a day scholar, went naturally to 
Miss Irwin's or to Miss Annabel's in town; if a boarder 
perhaps to Miss Chapman's at Holmesburg or Mrs. Come- 
gys at Chestnut Hill; unless her parents were converts or 
Catholics by birth when she went instead to the Convent of 
the Sacred Heart at Torresdale or in Walnut Street. The 
Philadelphia boy began with the Episcopal Academy and 
finished with the University of Pennsylvania. Friends 
went to the Friends' School in Germantown, and to 
Swarthmore and Haverford. What others did, did not 
matter. I had heard there were public or free schools 
where children could go for nothing, but nobody to my 
knowledge went to them. With what insolence we each of 
us, in our own little fraction of the world, think everybody 
outside of it nobody! But up in the top story rooms of 
the school-house at Broad and Locust, where my work took 
me two afternoons in the week, I found myself the centre 
of a vast network of schools! High Schools, Grammar 
Schools, Primary Schools, Scholarships, more divisions and 
subdivisions than I could count; with teachers — for there 
was a class for teachers — and pupils coming from every 
ward and suburb, every street and alley of the town; a 



THE MIRACLP: of work 259 

School Board keeping a watchful eye upon schools and 
teachers, not leaving me out; and all about me a vast 
population without one idea or interest except the educa- 
tion of Philadelphia. And this implied, like the news- 
paper, a perfect organization of its own to keep the whole 
thing going — an organization that never could have been 
born in a day. The education of Philadelphia had 
absorbed a vast population since Philadelphia was: the 
first Philadelphia children hardly escaping from their cave 
dwellings before they were hurried into school to have 
their poor little minds trained and disciplined. Really, 
in my first days of work, life was a succession of startling 
discoveries about Philadelphia. 

I could not get paid for my afternoons at the school, 
which I ought to have paid for considering the education 
they were to me, v/ithout making another discovery. The 
pay came monthly from the City in the form of a warrant, 
or so I believe it is called. As I have explained that I had 
never been possessed of money of my own, some allowance 
will be made for my stupidity in thinking it necessary to 
cash the warrant in person. It never occurred to me to 
open a bank account or to ask my Father to exchange the 
warrant for money. I went myself to the office in the big, 
new, unfinished City Hall — how well I remember, when 
I was kept waiting which was always, my conscientiousness 
in jotting down elaborate notes of windows and doors and 
upholstery and decoration: Zola in France and Howells 
at home having made Realism the literary fashion, and 



260 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

Realism, I gathered, being achieved only by way of jotting 
down endless notes in every situation in which I found 
myself; especially as J. had brought back from Italy ex- 
emplary and inspiring tales of Vernon Lee (Violet Paget) 
and JNIary Robinson (Mme. Duclaux) , with whom he had 
worked and travelled, filling blank books with memoranda 
collected from the windows of every train they took and 
every hotel in which they stayed. 

I am glad I was stupid, such a good thing for me was 
this going in person, such a suggestive lesson in City 
Government which I learned was as little of an automatic 
arrangement as education and the newspaper, and not 
necessarily something that all decent people should be 
ashamed of being mixed up with, the way my Father and 
the old-fashioned Philadelphian of his type looked upon it 
and every other variety of Government. It was just an- 
other huge, busy, striving, toiling organization, so huge 
as to fit with difficulty into the enormous ugly new build- 
ings, then recently set down for it in Penn Square with 
complete indifference to Penn's plan for his green country 
town, or to get its work done in the maze of courts and 
passages and offices by the hordes of big and little officials 
no less preoccupied in City Government than journalists 
in their newspaper, or teachers in their school, or — out- 
rageous as it may sound — society in the Assembly and 
Dancing Class and the things which I had been brought 
up to believe the beginning and end of existence on this 
earth. 







BROAD STREET. LOOKING SOUTH FROM ABOVE ARCH STREET 



THE MIRACLE OF WORK 263 

My new knowledge of Philadelphia was widened in 
various other directions as time went on. My Uncle's 
experiment, when it took practical shape, attracted atten- 
tion and he was asked to lecture on it in places like the 
Franklin Institute — there was no keeping away very 
long from Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia once I got 
to know anything about Philadelphia — and to visit institu- 
tions like Moyamensing Prison or Kirkbride's Insane 
Asylum that he might consider the advisability of intro- 
ducing his scheme of manual work for the benefit of the 
insane and the criminal. I usually accompanied him on 
these occasions, and before he had got through his rounds 
I had seen a number of different phases of Philadelphia 
activity and enterprise and power of organization. I had 
been given some idea of the armies of doctors and nurses 
and scientists who had made Kirkbride's a model through- 
out the land, while Dr. Albert Smith had helped me to 
an additional insight into the hospitals that set as excel- 
lent an example. I had been given an idea of the armies 
of judges and juries and police and governors and warders 
and visiting inspectors, — of whom my Father was one, 
with a special tenderness for murderers whom he used to 
take his family to visit — at Moyamensing. And from the 
combination of all my new experiences I had gained 
further knowledge of the energies at work beyond the 
limits of " Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce and Pine " to make 
Philadelphia what it was. 



264 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

VI 

I ought to have needed no guide to the knowledge and 
appreciation of these things, it may be said. I admit it. 
But the happy mortals who are boi-n observant do not 
picture to themselves the tortures gone through by those 
who must have observation thrust upon them before they 
bemn to use their eyes. I had not been born to observe, 
I had not been trained to observe, and to become observant 
I had to go through the sort of practical course Mr. 
Squeers set to his boys. His method, denounce it as you 
will, has its merits. The students of Dotheboys Hall 
could never have forgotten what a window is or what it 
means to clean it. I had grown up to accept life as a 
pageant for me to look on at, with no part to play in it. 
After my initiation into work, I could never forget, in the 
quietest, emptiest sections of the town, not even in placid 
little backwaters like Clinton Street and De Lancey 
Place, the machinery forever crashing and grinding and 
roaring to produce the pageant, to weave for Philadelphia 
the beautiful serenity it wore like a garment. I could 
never forget that, insignificant as my share in the ma- 
chinery might be, all the same I was contributing some- 
thing to make it go. I could never be sure that everybody 
I met, however calm in appearance, might not be as mixed 
up in the great machine of work as I was beginning to be. 

I had to work to learn that Philadelphia had worked, 
and still worked, and worked so well as to be the first to 



^^-^^^^- 




CLINTON STREET, WITH THE PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL AT ITS END 



THE MIRACLE OF WORK 267 

have given America much that is best and most vital in the 
country — the first to show the right way with its schools 
and hospitals and libraries and newspapers and galleries 
and museums, the leader in the fight for liberty of con- 
science, the scene of the first Colonial Congress and the 
signing of the Declaration of Independence and the Cen- 
tennial Exposition to commemorate it, a pioneer in science 
and industry and manufacture — a town upon which all the 
others in the land could not do better than model them- 
selves — while all the time it maintained its fine air of calm 
that perplexes the stranger and misleads the native. But 
I had found it out, found out its greatness, before age had 
dimmed my perceptions and dulled my power of apprecia- 
tion; and to find Philadelphia out is to love it. 



CHAPTER XI: THE ROMANCE OF WORK 

I 

I WAS still in the stage of wonder and joy at seeing 
myself in print, when work and Philadelphia joined 
in the most nnlooked for manner to help me tell my 
Grandmother that " something " she was so anxiously 
waiting to hear. An article on Philadelphia which an in- 
telligent Editor asked me to write was my introduction to 
J. The town that we both love first brought us to- 
gether, as it now brings us back to it together after the 
many years that have passed since it laid the foundation 
of our long partnership. 

I would say nothing about the article at this late date 
had it not added so materially to my life and to my knowl- 
edge of Philadelphia. I am not proud of it as a piece of 
literary work. But it seems, as I recall the days of my 
apprenticeship, to mark the turning of the ways, to point 
to the new road I was destined to take. I got it out the 
other day, the first time in over a quarter of a century, 
proposing to reprint it, thinking the contrast between my 
impressions of Philadelphia thirty years ago and my im- 
pressions of Philadelphia to-day might be amusing. In 
memory, it had remained a brilliant performance, one any 
editor would be pleased to jump at, and I was astonished to 
find it youthful and crude, inarticulate, inadequate not 

268 



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MM: 




\ . H' V 







THE CHERRY STREET STAIRS NEAR THE RIVER 



THE ROMANCE OF WORK 271 

only to the subject itself but to my appreciation of the 
subject which at the time was unbounded. I do not know 
whether to be more amazed at my failure in it to say what 
I wanted to say, or at the Editor's amiability in publish- 
ing it. The article may not have lost all its eloquence for 
me, since between the halting lines I can read the story 
I did not know how to tell, but for others it would prove 
a dull aff'aii* and it is best left where it is, forgotten in the 
old files of a popular magazine. 

The story I read is one of a series of discoveries with 
a romance in each. The way the article came about was 
that J. had made etchings of Philadelphia, and the 
Editor, who had wisely arranged to use them, thought they 
could not be published without accompanying text. When 
he asked me, as a young Philadelphian just beginning to 
write, to supply this text, he advised me to consult with 
J., whom I did not know and whose studio address he 
gave me. 

I was thrilled by the prospect, never having been in a 
studio nor met an artist, and when it turned out not half so 
simple as it looked on paper, when the first catching my 
artist was attended with endless delays and difficulties, it 
did not lessen the thrill or take away from the sense of 
adventure. 

J.'s studio, which he shared with Mr. Harry Poore, 
was at the top of what was then the Presbyterian Building 
on Chestnut Street above Thirteenth, quite new and 
of tremendous height at a time when the sky-scraper 



272 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

had not been invented nor the elevator become a necessity 
of Philadelphia life. Day after day, varying the hour 
with each attempt, now in the morning, now at noon, now 
toward evening, I toiled up those long flights of stairs, 
marvelling at the strange, unaccountable disclosures 
through half-opened studio doors, for it was a building of 
studios ; glad of the support of my Uncle who was seeing 
me through this, as he saw me through all my earliest 
literary enterprises; arriving at the top, breathless and 
panting, only to be informed by a notice, written on paper 
and pinned on the tight-locked door, that J. was out and 
would be back in half an hour. My Uncle and I were 
inclined to interpret this literally, once or twice waiting 
trustingly on the dark landing some little while beyond the 
appointed time. On one occasion I believe the door was 
opened, when we knocked, by JNIr. Poore who was not sure 
of the length of a half hour as J. reckoned it, but had an 
idea it might vary according to circumstances, especially 
now that J. was out of town. I went away not annoyed as 
I should be to-day, but more stirred than ever by the 
novelty of the adventure. 

At last I tied J. down by an appointment, as I should 
have done at the start, and he, having retin-ned to town, 
kept it to the minute. I think from first to last of this 
astonishing business I had no greater shock of astonish- 
ment than when I followed him into his studio. We were 
in the Eighteen-Eighties then, when American magazines 
and newspapers were making sensational copy out of the 




THE MORRIS HOUSE ON EIGHTH STREET 



THE ROMANCE OF WORK 275 

princely splendour of the London studios, above all of 
Tadema's, Leighton's, Millais': palatial interiors, hung 
with priceless tapestries, carpeted with rare Oriental rugs, 
sliining with old brass and pottery and armour, opening 
upon Moorish courts, reached by golden stairs, fragrant 
with flowers, filled with soft couches and luxurious 
cushions — flamboyant, exotic interiors that would not have 
disgraced Ouida's godlike young Guardsmen but that 
scarcely seemed to belong to men who made their living 
by the work of their hands. Indeed, it was their splendour 
that misled so many incompetent young men and women 
of the later Victorian age into the belief that art was the 
easiest and most luxurious short cut to wealth. But there 
was nothing splendid or princely about J.'s studio. It 
was frankly a workshop, big and empty, a few unframed 
drawings and life studies stuck up on the bare walls, the 
floors carpetless, for furniture an easel or two and a few 
odd rickety chairs — a room nobody would have dreamed 
of going into except for work. But then, my first im- 
pression of J. was of a man who did not want to do any- 
thing except work. 

My experience had been that people — if I leave out my 
Uncle — worked, not because they wanted to but because 
they had to and that, sceptical as they might be on every 
other Scriptural point, they were not to be shaken out of 
their belief in work as a curse inherited from Adam. J., 
evidently, would have found the curse in not being allowed 
to work. And as new to me was the enthusiasm with 



276 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

which, while he showed me his prints and drawings, he 
began to talk about Philadelphia and its beauty. It was 
unusual for Philadelphians to talk about their town at all ; 
if they did, it was more unusual for them to talk with 
enthusiasm; and the interest in it forced upon them by 
the Centennial had been for every quality rather than its 
beauty. Even my LTncle — though later, in his Memoirs, 
he wrote charmingly of the charm of Philadelphia — ^at 
that time affected to admire nothing in it except the un- 
sightly arches of the Pennsylvania Railroad, bridging 
the streets between the Schuylkill and the Station, and 
if he made the exception in their favour, it was because 
they reminded him of London. Thanks to the Centennial 
and the stimulus of hard work, I was not as ignorant of 
Philadelphia as I had been, but I was not rid of the old 
popular fallacy that the American in search of beauty 
must cross the Atlantic and go to Europe. And here was 
J., in five minutes telling me more about Philadelphia 
than I had learned in a lifetime, revealing to me in his 
drawings the beauty of streets and houses I had not had 
the wit to find out for myself, firing me with sudden 
enthusiasm in my turn, convincing me that nothing in the 
world counted but Philadelphia, opening my eyes to its 
unsuspected resources, so that after this I could walk 
nowhere without visions of romance where all before had 
been everyday commonplace, leaving me eager and im- 
patient to start on my next journey of discovery which 
was to be in his company. 



THE ROMANCE OF WORK 277 

II 

To illustrate our article — for ours it had become — J. 
passed over the obvious picturesqueness of Philadelphia — 
the venerable Pennsylvania Hospital, the beautiful State 
House, Christ Church, the Old Swedes, St. Peter's^ 
buildings for which Philadelphia, after years of indiffer- 
ence, had at last been exalted by the Centennial into his- 
toric monuments, the show places of the town, labelled and 
catalogued — buildings of which J. had already made 
records, having begun his work by drawing them, his plate 
of the State House among the first he ever etched. He 
now went in preference to the obscure by-ways, to the 
unpretending survivals of the past, so merged, so 
swallowed up in the present, that it needed keen eyes to 
detect them: old buildings stamped with age, but too 
humble in origin for the Centennial to have resurrected; 
busy docks, grimy river banks, crazy old rookeries 
abandoned to the business and poverty that claimed them: 
to the strange, neglected, never-visited corners of a great 
town where beauty springs from the rich soil of labour 
and chance, neglect and decay. 

How little I had known of Philadelphia up till then! 
One of the very first places to which he took me was the old 
Second Street Market that, when I lived within a stone's 
throw of it, I had never set my eyes on — the old market 
that, south of Pine, forces Second Street to widen and 
make space for it and that turns the gable of the little old 



278 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

Court House directly north, breaking the long vista of the 
street as St. Clement's and St. Mary's in London break 
the vista of the Strand — the old market that I believe the 
city proposes to pull down, very likely will have pulled 
down before these lines are in print, though there is not a 
Philadelphian who would not go into ecstasies over as 
shabby and down-at-the-heel Eighteenth Century building 
if stumbled upon in an English country town. And as 
close to his old family home and mine J. led me into inn 
yards that might have come straight from the Borough 
on the Surrey side of the Thames, and in and out of dark 
mysterious courts which he declared as " good " as the 
exploited French and Italian courts every etcher has at one 
time or another made a plate of — curious nooks and by- 
ways I had never stopped to look at during my Third 
Street days and would have seen nothing in if I had. 

And I remember going with him along Front Street, 
where I should have thought myself contaminated at a 
time when it might have varied the dull round of my 
daily walks, so unlike was it to the spick and span streets 
I knew, — glimpses at every crossing of the Delaware, 
Philadelphia's river of commerce that Philadelphians 
never went near unless to take the boat for Torresdale or, 
in summers of economy, the steamer for Liverpool; for 
several blocks, groups of seafaring men mending sails on 
the side-walk. Mariners' Boarding-Houses, a Mariners' 
Church, and Philadelphia here the seaport town it is and 
always has been; and then, successive odours of the barn- 










'\A 



THE OLD COACHING-INN YARD 



THE ROMANCE OF WORK 281 

yard, fish, spice, coffee, Philadelphia smelling as strong 
of the romance of trade as any Eastern bazaar. 

And I remember J. and 1 crossing the forbidden line 
into " up town " to find beauty, interest, picturesqueness 
in " Market, Arch, Race and Vine " — old houses every- 
where, the old Fleeting-House, Betsy Ross' house. Provost 
Smith's, the Christ Church Burial Ground at Fifth and 
Arch where Franklin is buried, narrow rambling alleys, 
red and black brick, and there, up on a house at the corner 
of Front, where it is to this day, a sign going back to the 
years when Race was still Sassafras Street, and so part of 
the original scheme of Philadelphia, to which, with Phila- 
delphia docility, I had all my life believed South of Market 
alone could claim the right. 

And I remember our wandering to the Schuylkill, not 
by the neat and well-kept roads and paths of the Park, 
but where tumbled-down houses faced it near Callowhill 
Street Bridge and works of one kind or another rose from 
its banks near Gray's Ferry, and Philadelphia was a town 
of industry, of machines, of railroads connecting it with all 
parts of the world, — for already to J. " the Wonder of 
Work " had made its irresistible appeal. And I remember 
our wandering farther, north and south, east and west — 
interest, beauty, picturesqueness never failing us — in the 
end Philadelphia transformed into a vast Wonderland, 
where in one little section people might spend their lives 
dancing, paying calls at noon, eating chicken salad and 
croquettes from Augustine's, but where in every other they 



282 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

were striving, struggling, toiling, to carry on Penn's tradi- 
tions and to give to his town the greatness, power and 
beauty he planned for it. 

In these walks I had followed J. into streets and 
quarters of the town I had not known. But I would be 
leaving out half the story if I did not say how much he 
showed me in the streets and quarters I did know. It is 
with a town, I suppose, as with life out of which, philoso- 
phers say, we get just as much, or as little, as we bring to 
it. I had brought no curiosity, no interest, no sympathy, 
to Philadelphia, and Philadelphia therefore had given me 
nothing save a monotony of red brick and green shade. 
But now I came keen with curiosity, full of interest, aflame 
with sympathy, and Philadelphia overwhelmed me with its 
gifts. Oh, the difference when, having eyes, one sees! I 
was as surprised to learn that I had been living in the midst 
of beauty all my life as M. Jourdain was to find he had 
been talking prose. 

Down in lower Spruce and all the neighbouring streets, 
where I had walked in loneliness longing for something 
to happen, something happened at every step — beautiful 
Colonial houses, stately doorways, decorative ironwork, 
dormer windows, great gables facing each other at street 
corners, harmonious proportions — not merely a bit here 
and a bit there, but the old Colonial town almost intact, 
preserved by Philadelphia through many generations only 
to be abandoned now to the Russian Jew and the squalor 



THE ROMANCE OE WORK 283 

and the dirt that the Russian Jew takes with him wherever 
he goes. In not another American town had the old streets 
then changed so httle since Colonial days, in not another 
were they so well worth keeping unchanged. I had not to 
dive into musty archives to unearth the self-evident fact 
that the early Friends, when they left England, packed 
up with their liberty of conscience the love of beauty in 
architecture and, what was more practical, the money to 
pay for it; that, in a fine period of English architecture, 
they got good English architects, — Wren said to have been 
of the number — to design not merely their public build- 
ings, but their private houses ; that, their Founder setting 
the example, they carried over in their personal baggage 
panelling, carvings, ironwork, red and black brick, furni- 
ture, and the various details they were not likely to procure 
in Philadelphia until Philadelphians had moved from their 
caves and the primeval forest had been cut down; that 
when Philadelphia could contribute its share of the work, 
they modified the design to suit climate, circumstances, and 
material, and bequeathed to us a Philadelphia with so much 
local character that it never could be mistaken for an 
English town. 

This used to strike the intelligent foreigner as long as 
Philadelphia was content to have a character of its own 
and did not bother to be in architectural or any other 
movements. " Not a distressingly new-looking city, for 
the Queen Anne style in vogue when its prosperity began 



284 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

is in the main adhered to with Quaker-like precision ; good 
red brick; numerous rather narrow windows with white 
outside shutters, a block cornice along the top of the 
facades and the added American feature of marble steps 
and entry," — this, in a letter to William ISIichael Rossetti, 
was Mrs. Gilchrist's description of Philadelphia in the late 
Eighteen-Seventies, and it is an appreciative description 
though most authorities would probably describe Philadel- 
phia as Georgian rather than Queen Anne. Philadelphia 
did more to let the old character go to rack and ruin during 
the years I was away from it than during the two centuries 
before, and is to-day repenting in miles upon miles of sham 
Colonial. But repentance cannot wipe away the traces 
of sin — cannot bring back the old Philadelphia I knew. 

I do not want to attribute too much to my new and 
only partially developed power of observing. Had the 
measuring worm not retreated before the sparrow, I might 
perhaps have been less prepared during my walks with J. 
to admit the beauty of the trees lining every street, as well 
as of the houses they shaded. But what is the use of 
troubling about the might-have-been? The important 
thing is that, with him I did for the first time see how 
beautiful are our green, well-shaded streets. With him 
too I first saw how beautiful is their symmetry as they run 
in their long straight lines and cross each other at right 
angles. It was a symmetry I had confused with monotony, 
with which most Philadelphians, foolishly misled, still con- 
fuse it. They would rather, for the sake of variety, that 










FRANKLIN'S GRAVE 






M 



THE ROMANCE OF WORK 287 

Penn had left the building and growth of Philadelphia to 
chance as the founders of other American towns did — they 
would rather boast with New York or Boston of the dis- 
orderly picturesqueness of streets that follow old cow 
tracks made before the town was. But Penn understood 
the value of order in architecture as in conduct. It is 
true that Ruskin, the accepted prophet of my young days, 
did not include order among his Seven Lamps, but there 
was a good deal Ruskin did not know about architecture, 
and a town like Paris in its respect for arrangement — for 
order — for a thought-out plan — will teach more at a glance 
than all his rhapsodies. Philadelphia has not the noble 
perspectives of the French capital nor the splendid build- 
ings to complete them, but its despised regularity gives it 
the repose, the serenity, which is an essential of great art, 
whether the art of the painter or the engraver, the sculptor 
or the architect. And it gives, too, a suggestiveness, a 
mystery we are more apt to seek in architectural disorder 
and caprice. I know nobody who has pointed out this 
beauty in Penn's design except Mrs. Gilchrist in the de- 
scription from which I have already borrowed, and she 
merely hints at the truth, not grasping it. Philadelphia to 
her was more picturesque and more foreign-looking than 
she expected, and her explanation is in the " long straight 
streets at right angles to each other, long enough and 
broad enough to present that always pleasing effect of 
vista-converging lines that stretch out indefinitely and 
look as if they must certainly lead somewhere very pleas- 



288 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

ant," — the streets that are to the town what " the open 
road " is to the country, — the long, white, straight road 
beckoning who can say where? 

Ill 

It was without the shghtest intention on my part that 
the vista-converging Hnes of the streets led me direct to 
William Penn. But I defy anybody to do a little thinking 
while walking through the streets of Philadelphia and not 
be led to him, so for eternity has he stamped them with his 
vivid personality — not William Penn, the shadowy prig 
of the school history, but William Penn, the man with a 
level head, big ideas, and the will to carry them out — three 
things that make for genius. To the weakling of to-day 
the fight for liberty of conscience would loom up so 
gigantic a task as to fill to overflowing his little sjjan here 
below. But in the fight as Penn fought it, the material 
details could be overlooked as little as the spiritual, the 
comfort of the bodies of his people no more neglected than 
the freedom of their souls. He did not stop to preach 
about town-planning and garden cities, and improved 
housing for the workman, like the would-be reformer of to- 
day. With no sentimental pose as saviour of the people, 
no drivel about reforming and elevating and sweetening 
the lives of humanity, no aspiration towards " world- 
betterment," Penn made sure that Philadelphia should be 
the green town he thought it ought to be and that men and 



THE ROMANCE OE WORK 289 

women, whatever their appointed task, should have decent 
houses to hve in. He had the common-sense to under- 
stand that his colonists would be the sturdier and the 
better equipped for the work they had to do if they 
lived like men and not like beasts, and that a town 
as far south as Philadelphia called for many gardens and 
much green shade. The most beautiful architecture is 
that which grows logically out of the needs of the people. 
That is why Penn's city as he designed it was and is a 
beautiful city, to which English and German town re- 
formers should come for the hints Philadelphians are so 
misguided as to seek from them. 

I could not meet Penn in his pleasant streets and miss 
the succession of Friends who took over the responsibility 
of ensuring life and reality to his design, not allowing it, 
like Wren's in London, to lapse into a half-forgotten 
archaeological curiosity. Personally, I knew nothing of 
the Friends and envied J. who did because he was one of 
them, as I never coidd be, as nobody, not born to it, can. 
I had seen them, as alas! they are seen no longer: quiet, 
dignified men in broad-brimmed hats, sweet-faced women 
in delicate greys and browns, filling our streets in the 
spring at the time of Yearly JNIeeting. Once or twice I 
had seen them at home, the women in white caps and fichus, 
quiet and composed, sitting peacefully in their old-time 
parlours simple and bare but filled with priceless Sheraton 
or ChiiDpendale. They looked, both in the open streets and 

19 



290 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

at their own firesides, so placid, so detached from the 
world's cares, it had not occurred to me that they could 
be the makers of the town's beauty and the sinews of its 
strength. But in my new mood I could nowhere get far 
from them. 

Ghosts of the early Friends haunted the old streets 
and the old houses and, mingling with them, were ghosts 
of the World's People who had lost no time in coming to 
share their town and ungraciously abuse the privilege. 
The air was thick with association. J. and I walked in 
an atmosi)here of the past, delightfully conscious of it but 
never troubling to reduce it to dry facts. We could not 
have been as young as we were and not scorn any ajDproach 
to pedantry, not as lief do without ghosts as to grub them 
up out of the Philadelphia Library or the Historical So- 
ciety. We left it to the antiquary to say just where the first 
Friends landed and the corner-stone of their first building 
was laid, just in which Third Street house Washington 
once danced, in which Front Street house Bishop White 
once lived. It was for the belated Boswell, not for us, to 
follow step by step the walks abroad of Pemi, or Franklin, 
or any of our town's great men. It was no more necessary 
to be historians in order to feel the charm of the past than 
to be architects in order to feel the charm of the houses, 
and for no amount of exact knowledge woidd we have 
exchanged the romance which enveloped us. 

Could I have put into words some of the emotion I 




ARCH STREET MEETING 



THE ROMANCE OE WORK 293 

felt in gathering together my material, what an article 
1 would have made! But my words came with difficulty, 
and indeed I have never had the " ready pen " of the 
journalist, always I have been shy in expressing emotion 
of any kind. No reader could have guessed from my 
article my enthusiasm as I wrote it. But at least it did 
get written and my pleasure in it was not disturbed by 
doubt. I was too enthralled by what I had to say to realize 
that I had not managed to say it at all. 

IV 

With the publication of the article our task was at an 
end, but not our walks together. J. and I had got into the 
habit of them, it was a pleasant habit, we saw no reason 
to give it up. 

Sometimes we walked with new work as an object. 
There were articles about Philadelphia for Our Continent. 
Wq called it work — learning Romany — when we both 
w^alked with my Uncle up Broad Street to Oakdale Park, 
and through Camden and beyond to the Reservoir, where 
the Gypsies camped, and made Camden in my eyes, not 
the refuge of all in doubt, debt, or despair as its traditions 
have described it, but a rival in romance of Bagdad or 
Samarcand. When we walked still further, taking the 
train to help us out, to near country towns for the autumn 
fairs, never missing a side show, we called this the search 
for local colour, and I filled note-books with notes. Some- 



294 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

times we walked for no more practical purpose than 
pleasure in Philadelphia. And we could walk for days, we 
could walk for miles, and exhaust neither the pleasure 
nor the town that I once fancied I knew by heart if I 
walked from ^Market to Pine and from the Delaware to 
the Schuylkill. 

I remember as a remarkable incident my discovery of 
the suburbs. With the prejudice borrowed from my 
Father, I had cultivated for all suburbs something of the 
large sweeping contempt which, in the Eighteen-Nineties, 
Henley and the National Observer, carrying on the tradi- 
tion of Thackeray, made it the fashion to profess for the 
suburbs of London. West Philadelphia and Germantown 
were no less terms of opprobrium in my mouth than Clap- 
ham and Brixton in Henley's. But Henley, though it was 
a mistake to insist upon Clapham with its beautiful Com- 
mon and old houses and dignified air, was expressing his 
splendid scorn of the second-rate, the provincial, in art and 
in letters. I was only expressing, parrot-like, a pose that 
did not belong to me, but to my Father in whose outlook 
upon life and things there was a whimsical touch, and who 
carried off* his prejudices with humour. 

I was the more foolish in this because few towns, if 
any, have lovelier suburbs than Philadelphia. Their loveli- 
ness is another part of our inheritance from William Penn 
who set no limits to his dream of a green country town, and 
from the old Friends who, in deference to his desire, lined 
not only their streets but their roads with trees. This is 




*' '\Y**'-'vt 



CLIVEDEN, THE CHEW HOUSE 



THE ROMANCE OF WORK 297 

only as it should be, I thought when, reading the letters 
of John Adams, I came upon his description of the road 
to Kensington and beyond, " straight as the streets of 
Philadelphia, on each side . . . beautiful rows of trees, 
button-woods, oaks, walnuts, cherries, and willows." In 
our time, scarcely a road out of Philadelphia is without 
the same beautiful rows, if not the same variety in the 
trees, and while much of the open country it ran through 
in John Adams' day has been built up with town and 
.suburban houses, the trees still line it on each side. Every- 
body knows the beauty of the leafy roads of the INIain 
Line, quite a correct thing to know, the IVIain Line being 
the refuge of the Philadeli3hian jiushed out of " Chestnut, 
Walnut, Spruce and Pine " by business and the Russian 
Jew combined. But the Main Line has not the monopoly 
of suburban beauty, though it may of suburban fashion. 
The JVIain Street in Germantown, with its peacefid old 
grey stone houses and great overshadowing trees, has no 
rival at home or abroad, and I have seen as commonplace a 
street as W^alnut in West Philadelphia, its uninteresting 
houses screened behind the two long lines of trees, become 
in the golden light of a summer afternoon as stately an 
avenue as any at Versailles or St. Germain. 

Not only the trees, but the past went with us to 
Germantown. Has any other American suburb so many 
old houses to boast? Stenton, the Chew House, the John- 
son House, the Morris House, the Wistar House, W^yck — 
are there anv other Colonial houses with nobler interiors, 



298 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

statelier furniture, sweeter gardens? I recall the pillared 
hall of Chew House, the finely proportioned entrance and 
stairway of Stenton, the garden of Wyck as I last saw it — 
rather overgrown, heavy with the perfume of roses and 
syringa, the June sun low behind the tall trees that stand 
close to the wall along Walnut Lane ; — ^I recall the memo- 
ries clustering about those old historic homes, about every 
lane and road and path, and I wonder that Germantown 
is not one of the show places of the world. But the 
foreigner, to whom Philadelphia is a station between New 
York and Washington or New York and Chicago, has 
never heard of it, nor has the rest of America to whom 
Philadelphia is the junction for Atlantic City. With the 
exception of Stenton, the old Germantown houses are for 
use, not for show, still lived in by the families who have 
lived in them from the beginning, and I love them too well 
to want to see them overtaken by the fate of sights starred 
in Baedeker, even while I wonder why they have escaped. 
At times J. and I walked in the green valley of the 
Wissahickon, along the well-kept road past the old white 
taverns, with wide galleries and suppers of cat-fish and 
waffles, which had not lost their pleasant primitiveness to 
pass themselves off as rural Rumpelmeyers where ladies 
stop for afternoon tea. Can the spring be fairer any- 
where than in and around Philadelphia when wistaria 
blossoms on ever}^ wall and the country is white with dog- 
wood? Often we w^andered in the Wissahickon woods, by 
narrow footpaths up the low hillsides, so often that, wher- 



THE ROMANCE OF WORK 299 

ever I may be, certain effects of brilliant sunsbine filtering 
tbrougb tbe pale green of early spring foliage will send me 
straigbt back to the Wissabickon and to tbe days when I 
could not walk in Philadelphia or its suburbs and not 
strike gold at every step. And the Wissabickon was but 
one small section of the Park, of which the corrupt govern- 
ment Philadelphia loves to rail at made the largest and 
fairest, at once the wildest and most wisely laid-out play- 
ground, in America. Will a reform Government, with 
all its boasting, do as much for Philadelphia? I had 
skimmed the surface only on those boating parties up the 
river and those walking parties in the starlit or moonlit 
shade. Wide undiscovered stretches lay off the beaten 
track, and the mansions of the Park — Strawberry, Bel- 
mont, Mount Pleasant — were well stocked, not only with 
lemonade and cake and peanuts, with croquettes and 
chicken salad, but with beauty and associations for those 
who knew how to give the order. And, greater marvel, 
beauty — classic beauty — was to be had even in the Fair- 
mount Water Works that, after I left school, I had looked 
down ujion as a childish entertainment provided for the 
holidays, beneath the consideration of my maturer years. 

V 

Of all our walks, none was better than the walk to 
Bartram's on the banks of the Schuylkill beyond Gray's 
Ferry. It seemed very far then, before the trolley passed 
bv its gate, and before the rows of little two-storv houses 



300 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

had begun to extend towards it like the greedy tentacles 
of the great town. The City Government had not taken it 
over, it was not so well looked after. The old grey stone 
house, with the stone tablet on its walls bearing witness 
that his Lord was adored by John Bartram, had not yet 
been turned into a museum. I am not sure whether the 
trees around it — the trees collected from far and near — 
were learnedly labelled as they are now. The garden had 
grown wild, the thicket below was a wilderness. It is right 
that the place should be cared for. The city could not 
afford to lose the beauty one of its most famous citizens, 
who was one of the most famous botanists of his day, 
built up, and his family preserved, for it, and when I 
returned I welcomed the sign this new care gave of Phila- 
delphia's interest, so long in the awakening. But Bar- 
tram's was more beautiful in its neglect, as an old church 
is more beautiful before the restorer pulls down the ivy 
and scrapes and polishes the stone. Many were the Sun- 
day afternoons J. and I spent there, and many the hours 
we sat talking on the little bench at the lower end of the 
wilderness, where we looked out on the river and planned 
new articles. 

When our walks together had become too strong a 
habit to be broken and we decided to make the habit one 
for life, we went back again and again to Bartram's and 
on that same little bench, looking out upon the river, we 
planned work for the long years we hoped were ahead of 



■5«r#^ ^f^. ft^mf ^^ 







THE ROMANCE OF WORK 303 

us : perhaps seeing the future in the more glowing colours 
for the contrast with the past ahout us, the ashes of the 
life and beauty from which our phcenix was to soar. The 
work then planned carried and kept us thousands of miles 
away, but it belongs none the less to the old scenes, where 
it was inspired, and I like to think that, though the chances 
of this w^ork have made us exiles for years, the memory of 
our life as we have lived it is inseparable from the memory 
of Bartram's or, indeed, of Philadelphia which, through 
work, I learned to see and to love. 



CHAPTER XII : PHILADELPHIA 
AND LITERATURE 



ON the principle that nothing interests a man — or a 
woman — so much as shop, I had no sooner 
begun to write than I saw Philadelphia divided 
not between the people who coidd and could not go to the 
Assembly and the Dancing Class, but between the people 
who could and could not write ; and, after I began to write 
for illustration, between the people who could and could 
not paint and draw. It had never before occurred to me 
to look for art and literature in Philadelphia. 

At that time, you had, literally, to look for the litera- 
ture to find it. Philadeljihia, with its usual reticence and 
conscientiousness in preventing any Philadelphian from 
becoming a prophet in Philadelphia, had hidden its liter- 
ary, with its innumerable other, lights under a bushel, 
content itself to know they were there, if nobody else did. 
As towns, like men, are apt to be accepted at their own 
valuation, most Americans would then have thought it 
about as useful to look for snakes in Ireland as for litera- 
ture in Philadelphia. I am not sure that the Philadelphian 
did not agree with them. Recently, I have heard him, in 
his new zeal for Philadelphia, talk as if it were the biggest 
literary thing on earth, the headquarters of letters in the 

304 



.'■^ v^k'^^ v1 '•Cvs.^ -X ■ 



X>S.. 




•^ ,s* 






^^'^■1l\.r: "^in 




CARPENTER'S HALL INTERIOR 



PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE 307 

United States, a boast which I am told IndianapoHs also 
makes and, as far as I am concerned, can keep on making 
undisputed, for I do not believe in measuring literature 
like so much sheet iron or calico. But no matter what we 
have come to in Philadelphia, in the old days the Philadel- 
phian seldom gave his lions a chance to roar at home or 
paid the least attention to them if they tried to. I rather 
think he would have affected to share the Western Con- 
gressman's opinion of " them literary fellers " when the 
literary fellers came from his native town. 

But the Philadelphian must have done a great deal of 
reading to judge by the number of public libraries in the 
town, — the Philadelphia Library, the Ridgway, the Mer- 
cantile, the Free Public Library, the University Library, 
the Bryn Mawr College Library, the Friends' German- 
town Library, the Library of the Historical Society, and 
no doubt dozens I know nothing about — and there were 
always collectors from the days of Logan and Dr. Rush 
to those of Mr. Widener, George C. Thomas and Governor 
Pennypacker. But the Philadelphia reading man never 
talked books and the Philadelphia collector never vaunted 
and advertised his treasures, as he does now that collecting 
is correct. The average man kept his books out of sight. I 
remember few in my Grandfather's house, and not a book- 
case from top to bottom — few in any other house except 
my Father's. But I know that many people had books and 
a library set apart to read them in, and I have been as- 
tonished since to see the large collections in houses where 



308 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

of old I had never noticed or suspected their presence. The 
Philadelphian was as reticent about his books and his 
pleasure in them as about everything else, with the result 
that he got the credit for neither, even at home. This had 
probably something to do with the fact that though, as far 
back as I can remember, I had had a fancy for books and 
for reading, I grew up with the idea that for literature, as 
for beauty, the Atlantic had to be crossed, that it was not in 
the nature of things for Philadelphia to have had a literary 
past, to claim a literary present, or to hope for a literary 
future. But as I had discovered my mistake about the 
beauty during those walks with J., so in my modest stall in 
the literary shop, I learned how far out I had been about 
the literature. It was the same story over again. I had 
only to get interested, and there was everything in the 
world to interest me. 

II 

There was the past, for Philadelphia had had a literary 
past, and not at all an empty past, but one full of the ro- 
mance of effort and pride of achievement. Because Phila- 
delphians did not begin to write the minute they landed 
on the banks of the Delaware, some wise people argue that 
Friends were then, as now, unliterary. But what of Wil- 
liam Penn, whose writings have become classics? What 
of Thomas Elwood, the friend of INIilton? What of 
George Fox who, if unlettered, was a born writer no less 
than Bunyan? Friends did not write and publish books 



PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE 309 

right off in Philadelphia for the same excellent reason that 
other Colonists did not in other Colonial towns. Living 
was an absorbing business that left them no time for writ- 
ing, and printing presses and publishers' offices and book 
stores did not strike them as immediate necessities in the 
wilderness. It was not out of consideration that the early 
Philadelphia Friends bequeathed nothing to the now sadly 
overladen shelves of the British Museum and the Library 
of Congress. 

When leisure came Philadelphians were readier to 
devote it to science. According to Mr. Sydney Fisher, 
Pennsylvania has done more for science than any other 
State: a subject upon which my profound ignorance bids 
me be silent. But science did not keep them altogether 
from letters. No people ever had a greater itch for writing. 
Look at the length of their correspondence, the minute- 
ness of their diaries. And they broke into poetry on the 
slightest provocation. Authorities say that no real poem 
appeared in America before 1800, but the blame lies not 
alone with Philadelphia. It did what it could. Boston 
may boast of Anne Bradstreet who was rhyming before 
most New Englanders had time for reading, but so could 
Philadelphia brag of Deborah Logan— if Philadelphia 
ever bragged of anything Philadelphian — and I am will- 
ing to believe there is no great difference between the two 
poetesses without labouring through their verses to prove 
myself wrong. And the Philadelphian was as prolific as 
any other Colonial in horrible doggerel to his mistress's 



310 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

hoops and bows, to her tears and canary birds. And as 
far as I know, only a Philadelphian among Colonial poets 
is immortalized in the Duneiad, though possibly Ralph, 
Franklin's friend to whom the honour fell, would rather 
have been forgotten than remembered solely because his 
howls to Cynthia made night hideous for Pope. And 
where else did the young men so soon form themselves into 
little groups to discourse seriously upon literature and 
kindred matters, as they walked sedately in the woods 
along the Schuylkill? Where else was there so soon a 
society — a junto — devoted to learning? 

In innumerable ways I could see, once I could see 
anything, how Philadelphia was preparing itself all along 
for literary pursuits and accomplishment. Let me brag a 
little, if Philadelphia won't. Wasn't it in Germantown 
that the first paper mill of the Colonies was set up? Wasn't 
it there that the New Testament was printed in German 
— and went into seven editions — before any other Colony 
had the enterprise to print it in English, so that Saur's 
Testament is now a treasure for the collector? Isn't it 
maintained by some authorities, if others dispute it, that 
the first Bible in English was published in Philadelphia by 
Robert Aitken, at " Pope's Head above the Coffee House, 
in Market Street " ? And Philadelphia issued the first 
American daily paper, the most important of the first 
American reviews, the most memorable Almanac of 
Colonial days — can any other compete with Poor Rich- 
ard's? And Philadelphia opened the first Circulating 







c . 



MAIN STREET, GERMANTOWN 



PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE 313 

Library — the Philadelphia Library is no benevolent up- 
start of to-day. And Philadelphia publishers were for 
years the most go-ahead and responsible — who did not 
know the names of Gary, Lea, Rlanchard, Griggs, 
Lippincott, knew nothing of the publishing trade. And 
Philadelphia book stores, with Lippincott's leading, 
were the best patronized. And Philadelphia had the 
monopoly of the English book trade, with Thomas Wardle 
to direct it. And Philadelphia held its own views on copy- 
right and stuck to them in the face of opposition for 
years — whether right or wrong does not matter, the thing 
is that it cared enough to have views. There is a record 
for you! Why the literary man had only to appear, and 
Philadelphia was all swept and garnished for his comfort 
and convenience. 

And the literary man did appear, with amazing 
promptness under the circumstances. When the demand 
was for political writers, Philadelphia supplied Franklin, 
Dickinson, and a whole host of others, until it is all the 
Historical Society of Pensylvania can do to cope with 
their pamphlets. When the demand was for native fiction, 
Philadelphia produced the first American novelist, Charles 
Brockden Brown, and if Philadelphians do not read him 
in our day, Shelley did in his, which ought to be as much 
fame as any pioneer could ask for. When the need was for 
an American Cookery Book, Philadelphia presented ]Miss 
Leslie to the public who received her with such apprecia- 
tion that, in the First Edition, she is harder to find than 



314 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

Mrs. Glasse. When, with the years, the past rose in 
value, Philadelphia gave to America an antiquary, and 
John Watson, with his Annals, set a fashion in Philadel- 
phia that had to wait a good half century for followers. 
And when the writer was multiplied all over the country 
and the reader with him, Philadelphia provided the periodi- 
cal, the annual, the parlour-table book, that the one wrote 
for and the other subscribed to — an endless succession of 
them: The Casket, The Gift, The Souvenir, which I have 
no desire to disturb on their obscure shelves ; the Philadel- 
phia Saturday Miiseinn, and Burtons Gentleman's Maga- 
zine, to me the emptiest of empty names ; Sartains Union 
Magazine, which I might as well be honest and say I have 
never seen; Grahanis, in its prime, unrivalled, unap- 
proached; Godey's Lady's Booh, offering its pages alike 
to the newest verse and the latest mode, the popular maga- 
zine that every American saw at his dentist's or his doc- 
tor's, edited by Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale, for a woman, 
then as always, could get where she chose, if she had the 
mind to, without the help of arson and suicide ; Petersons, 
which I recall only in its title ; Lippincott's, in my time the 
literary test or standard in Philadelphia and scrupulously 
taken in by the Philadelphia householder. I can see it 
still, lying soberly on the centre table in the back parlour 
of the Eleventh and Spruce Street house, never defaced 
or thumbed, I fancy seldom opened, but like everything 
in the house, like my Grandfather himself, a type, a symbol 



PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE 315 

of Philadelphia respectability. It was as much an obliga- 
tion for the respectable Philadelphia citizen to subscribe 
to Lippincott's as to belong to the Historical Society, to 
be a member of the Philadelphia Library, to buy books 
for Christmas presents at Lippincott's or Porter and 
Coates'. The Philadelphian, who had no particular use 
for a book as a book or, if he had, kept the fact to himself, 
was content to parade it as an ornament, and no par- 
lour was without its assortment of pretty and expensive 
parlour-table books, received as Christmas presents, and 
as purely ornamental as the pictures on the wall and the 
vases on the mantelpiece. I know one Philadelphian who 
carried this decorative use of books still further and nailed 
them to the ceiling to explain that the room they decorated 
was a library, which nobody would have suspected for a 
moment, as they were the only volumes in it. 

For the man who had a living to make out of literature, 
Philadelphia was a good place, not to come away from, 
but to go to, and a number of American men of letters 
did go, though I need hardly add Philadelphia made as 
little of the fact as possible. In Philadelphia Washington 
Irving, sometimes called America's first literary man, pub- 
lished his books, but truth compels me to admit that he 
fared better when he handed them over to Putnam in New 
York; though of late years, the Lippincotts have done 
much to atone for the old failure by their successful issues 
of The Alhambfa and The Traveller. To Philadelphia 



316 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

magazines, N. P. Willis, and there was no more popular 
American writer, pledged himself for months ahead. To 
Philadelphia, Lowell came from Boston to get work. 
Poe deserted Richmond and the South for Philadelphia, 
where he contributed to Philadelphia magazines, edited 
them, planned new ones, while Philadelphia waited until 
he was well out of the world to know that he ever had lived 
there. Altogether, when I came upon the scene, Phila- 
delphia had had a highly creditable literary past, and was 
having a highly creditable literary present, and, in pursu- 
ance of its invariable policy, was making no fuss about it. 

Ill 

As I look back, the three most conspicuous figures of 
this literary present were Charles Godfrey Leland, George 
Boker and Walt Whitman. All three were past middle 
age, they had done most of their important work, they had 
gained an international reputation. But that of course 
made no difference to Philadelphia. I doubt if it had 
heard of George Boker as a man of letters, though it knew 
him politically and also socially, as he had not lost his 
interest in society and the Philadelphia Club. My Uncle, 
having no use for society in Philadelphia and saying so 
with his accustomed vigour, and not having busied himself 
with politics for many years, was ignored unreservedly. 
Walt Whitman, who probably would not have been con- 
sidered eligible for the Assembly and the Dancing Class 



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PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE 319 

had he condescended to know of their existence, did not 
exist socially, and it is a question if he would have collected 
round him his ardent worshippers from Philadelphia had 
he not had the advantage of having been born somewhere 
else. If I am not mistaken, this worship had not begun 
in my time, when he was more apt to receive a visitor from 
London or Boston than from Philadelphia. 

The fact that it was my good fortune to know these 
three men contributed considerably to my new and pleas- 
ant feeling of self-importance. When I wrote the life of 
my Uncle a few years ago, I had much to say of him and 
my relations with him at this period, and I do not want to 
repeat myself. But I can no more leave him out of my 
recollections of literary Philadelphia than out of my per- 
sonal reminiscences. When he entered so intimately into 
my life he was nearer sixty than fifty, but he had lost noth- 
ing of his vigour nor of his physical beauty — tall, large, 
long-bearded, a fine profile, the eyes of the seer. He was 
fastidious in dress, with a leaning to light greys and 
browns, and a weakness for canes which he preferred thin 
and elegant. I remember his favourite was black and had 
an altogether unfashionable silver, ruby-eyed dragon for 
handle. On occasions to which it was appropriate, he wore 
a silk hat; on others, more informal, he exchanged it for 
a large soft felt — a modified cowboy hat — which suited him 
better, though he would not have forgiven me had I had 
the courage to say so to his face, his respect for the con- 



320 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

ventions, always great, having been intensified during his 
long residence in England. It seems superfluous to add 
that he could not pass unnoticed in Philadelphia streets, 
which did not run to cowboy hats or dragon-handled canes 
or any deviations from the approved Philadelphia dress. 
Nor did his fancy for peering into shop windows make him 
less conspicuous, and as his daily walk was hardly com- 
plete if it did not lead to his buying something in the shop, 
were it only a five-cent bit of modern blue-and-white 
Japanese china, this meant that before his purchase was 
handed over to me, as it usually was, his pleasure being 
not in the possession but in the buying, he had parcels to 
carry, a shocking breach of good manners in Philadelphia. 
In his comjDany therefore I became a conspicuous figure 
myself, and I was often his companion in the streets; but 
to this I had no objection, having been inconspicuous far 
too long for my taste. 

He had written his Breitmann Ballads years before 
when the verse of no other American of note — unless it 
was Longfellow's and Whittier's and Lowell's in the Big- 
low Papers — had had so wide a circulation. He had also 
published one or two of his Gypsy books, never surpassed 
except by Borrow. And he was engaged in endless new 
tasks — more Gypsy papers, Art in the Schools, Indian 
Legends, Comic Ballads, Essays on Education, and I did 
not mind what since my excitement was in being admitted 
for the first time into the companionship of a man who de- 



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PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE 323 

voted himself to writing, to whom writing was business, 
who sat down at his desk after breakfast and wrote as my 
Father after breakfast went down to his office and bought 
and sold stocks, who never stopped except for his daily 
walk, who got back to work if there was a free hour before 
dinner and who, after dinner, read until he went to bed. 
JNIoreover, he had brought with him the aroma, as it were, 
of the literary life in London. He had met many of the 
people who, because they had written books, were my 
heroes. Here would have been literature enough to trans- 
figure Philadelphia had I known no other writers. 

IV 

But, through him, I did know others. First of all, 
George Boker with whom, however, I could not pretend 
to friendship or more than the barest acquaintance. In 
the streets he was as noticeable a figure as my Uncle, 
though given neither to cowboy hats and dragon-handled 
canes nor to peering into shop windows and carrying 
parcels. Like my Uncle, he was taller than the average 
man, and handsomer, his white hair and white military 
moustache giving him a more distinguished air, I fancy, in 
his old age than was his in his youth. His smile was of the 
kindliest, the characteristic I remember best. He had re- 
turned from his appointments as Minister to Russia and 
Turkey and had given up active political and diplomatic 
life. He had written most of his poems, if not all, includ- 



3*24 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

ing the Francesca da Rimini which Lawrence Barrett was 
shortly afterwards to put on the stage, and he impressed 
nie as a man who had had his fill of life and work and 
adventure and was content to settle down to the comforts 
of Philadelphia. He and my Uncle, who had been friends 
from boyhood or babyhood, spent every Sunday afternoon 
together. ]My Uncle had large spacious rooms on the 
QTOund floor of a house in South Broad Street where the 
Philadelphia Art Club now is, and there George Boker 
came Sunday after Sunday and there, if I dropped in, I 
saw him. I had tlie discretion never to stay long, for I 
realized that their intimate free talk was valued too much 
by both for them to care to have it interrupted. I can 
remember nothing he ever said — I have an idea he was a 
man who did not talk a great deal, while my Uncle did; 
my memory is of his kindly smile and my sense that here 
was one of the literary friendships I had read of in books. 
So, I thought, might Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith have 
met and talked, or Lamb and Coleridge, and Broad Street 
seemed tinged with tlie romance that I took for granted 
coloured the Temple in London and Gough Square. 

V 

Through my Uncle I also met Walt Wliitman, and he 
impressed me still more with the romance of literature. 
He was so unexpected in Philadelphia, for which I claim 
him in his last years, Camden being little more than a 
suburb, whatever Camden itself may tliink. I could 



nilLADELPHIA AND LITERATI liK 325 

almost have imagined tliat it was for the humour of the 
thing he came to settle where his very appearance was an 
offence to the proprieties. George Boker was scrupu- 
lously correct. jNIy Uncle's hat and dragon-handled cane 
only seemed to emphasize his inhorn Philadel2)hia shrink- 
ing from eccentricity. But Walt Whitman, from top to 
toe, proclaimed the man who did not hother to think of the 
conventions, much less respect them. You saw it in his 
long white hair and long white heard, in his loose light 
grey clothes, in the soft white shirt unlaundered and open 
at the neck, in the tall, formless grey hat like no hat ever 
worn in Philadelphia. To have been stopped by him on 
Chestnut Street — a street he loved — would have filled me 
with confusion and shame in the days before literatm-e had 
become my shop. But once literature blocked my horizon, 
to be stopped by him lifted me up to the seventh heaven. 
If people tm-ned to look, and Philadelj^hians never grew 
quite accustomed to his presence, my pleasure was the 
greater. I took it for a visible sign that I was known, 
recognized, and accepted in the literary world. And what 
a triumph in streets where, of old, life had appalled me by 
its emptiness of incident! 

In one way or another I saw a good deal of AValt 
Whitman, but most frequently by the chance which in- 
creased the pictu.resqueness of the meeting. I called on 
him in tlie Camden house described many times by many 
people: in my memory, a little house, the room where I 
was received simple and bare, the one ornament as un- 



326 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

expected there as Walt Whitman himself in Philadelphia, 
for it was an old portrait, dark and dingy, of an ancestor ; 
and I wondered if an ancestor so ancient as to grow dark 
and dingy in a frame did not make it easier to play the 
democrat and call every man comrade — ^or Camerado, I 
shonld say, as Walt Whitman said, with his curious fond- 
ness for foreign words and sounds. But though I saw him 
at home, he is more associated in my memory with the ferry- 
boat for Camden when my Uncle and I were on our 
way to the Gypsy's camping place near the reservoir; 
and with the corner of Front and Market and the boot- 
black's big chair by the Italian's candy and fruit stand 
where he loved to sit, and where I loved to see him, 
though, Philadelphian at heart, I trembled for his audac- 
ity; and with the Market Street horse-car, where he was 
already settled in his corner before it started and where 
the driver and the conductor, passing through, nodded to 
him and called him " Walt," and where he was as happy 
as the modern poet in his sixty-horse-power car. He was 
happiest when sitting out in front with the driver, and I 
have rarely been as proud as the afternoon he gave up that 
privileged seat to staj^ with my Uncle and myself inside. 
His greeting was always charming. He would take a hand 
of each of us, hold the two in his for a minute or so beam- 
ing upon us, never saying very much. I remember his 
leading us once, with our hands still in his, from the fruit- 
stand to the tobacconist's opposite to point out to my 




THE ELEVATED AT MARKET STREET WHARF 



PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE 329 

Uncle the wooden fignre of an Indian at the door, for 
which he professed a great a(hnirati()n as an example of the 
art of the people before they were trained in the Minor 
Arts. 

These chance meetings were always the best, and he 
told us that he thought them so, that he loved his accidental 
meetings with friends — there were many he prized among 
his most valued reminiscences. And I remember his story 
of Longfellow having gone over to Camden purposely to 
call on him, and not finding him at liome, and their run- 
ning into each other on the ferry-boat to jNIarket Street, 
and Longfellow saying that he had come from the house 
deeply disappointed, regretting the long quiet talk he had 
hoped for, but deciding that perhaps the strange chance 
of the meeting on the water was better. My LTncle, had he 
been hurrying to catch a train, would still have managed 
to talk ])hilosophy and art education. But I remember 
AValt Whitman also saying that the ferry and the corner 
of Market Street and the JNIarket Street car were hardlj' 
places for abstract discussion, though the few things said 
there were the less easily forgotten for being snatched 
joyfully by the way. 

It was one day in the Market Street car that he and 
my Uncle had the talk which left with me the profoundest 
impression. As a rule I was too engrossed in thinking 
what a great person I was, when in such company, to shine 
as a reporter. But on this occasion the subject was the 



330 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

School of Industrial Ai'ts in which I was giving my Uncle 
the benefit of my incompetent assistance. He asked Walt 
Whitman to come and see it, telling him a little of its 
aims and methods. Whitman refused, amiably but posi- 
tively. I cannot recall his exact words, but I gathered 
from them that he had no sympathy with schemes savour- 
ing of benevolence or reform, that he believed in leaving 
people to work out their own salvation, and this, coming 
as it did after I had seen for myself the terms he was on 
with the driver and conductor, expressed more eloquently 
than his verse his definition of democracy. I may be mis- 
taken, but I thought then and have ever since that his be- 
lief in the people carried him to the point of thinking they 
knew better than the philanthropist what they needed and 
did not need. My Uncle was not of accord with him and I, 
who am neither democrat nor philanthropist, would not 
pretend to decide between them. My Uncle did not like 
Walt Whitman's attitude and refusal, convinced as he was 
of the good to the people that was to come of the reform 
he was initiating, though he was constitutionally incapable 
of meeting the people he was reforming on equal terms. 
The twinkle in Walt Whitman's eye when he refused gave 
me the clue to the large redeeming humour with which he 
looked upon a foolish world, seeing each individual in the 
place appointed, right in it, fitting into it, unfit for any 
other he did not make for himself of his own desire and 
coin-age — the humour without which the human tragedy 
would not be bearable. 



PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE 331 

1 wish I could have had more talk with Whitman, I 
wish I had been older or more experienced, that I might 
have got nearer to him — or so I felt in those old days. I 
have now an idea that his silence was more effective than 
his speech, that if he had said more to any of his de- 
voted following he might have been less of a prophet. But 
his tranquil presence was in itself sufficient to open a new 
outlook, and it reconciled me to the scheme of the universe 
for good or for ill. His personality impressed me far 
more than his poems. It seemed to me to explain them, 
to interpret them, as nothing else could — his few words of 
greeting worth pages of the critic's eloquent analysis. 



CHAPTER XIII: PHILADELPHIA 
AND LITERATURE— CONTINUED 



I HAD glimpses into other literary vistas, but mostly 
from a respectful and highly appreciative distance. 
How I wish I could recapture even as much as the 
shadow of the old rapturous awe with which any man or 
woman who had ever made a book inspired me ! 

There was reason for awe when the man was Dr. 
Horace Howard Furness, the editor of Shakespeare, and 
if Philadelphia knew its duty better than to draw attention 
to so scholarly a performance by a Philadelphian, scholars 
out of Philadelphia, who were not hampered by Philadel- 
phia conventions, hailed it as the best edition of Shake- 
speare there could be. I must always regret that in his 
case I succeeded in having no more than the glimpse. 
jNIost of my literary introductions came through my Uncle 
who, though he knew Dr. Furness, saw less and less oi' 
him as time went on, partly I think because of one of those 
small misunderstandings that are more unpardonable than 
tlie big offences — certainly they were to my Uncle. Dr. 
Furness' father, old Dr. Furness the LTnitarian INIinister, 
meeting him in the street one day, asked him gaily, but I 
have no doubt with genuine interest, how his fad, the school, 
was getting on. My Uncle, who could not stand having an 

332 




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PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE 335 

•enterprise so serious to him treated lightly by others, re- 
torted by asking Dr. Fiirncss how his fad the pulpit was 
getting on. The result was coolness. The chances are that 
Dr. Furness never realized the enormity of which he had 
been guilty, but my Uncle could neither forget his jest 
nor forgive him and his family for it. And his heart was 
not softened until many years afterwards, when in far 
Florence he heard that Dr. Furness wished for his return 
to Philadelphia that he might vindicate his claim, in danger 
of being overlooked, as the first to have introduced the 
jstudy of the Elinor Arts into the Public Schools. 

]Mrs. Wister w^as another Philadelphia literary ce- 
lebrity whose work had made her known to all America 
by name, the only way she was known to me. It was my 
loss, for they say she was more charming than, her work. 
But to Philadelphia no charm of personality, no popularity 
of work, could shed lustre upon her name, which was her 
chief glory: literature was honoured when a Wister 
stooped to its practice. On her translations of German 
novels, Philadelphians of my generation were brought up. 
After Faith Gartneys Girlhood and Queechy and The 
Wide Wide World, no tales were considered so innocuous 
for the young, not yet provided with the mild and ex- 
emplary adventures of the tedious Elsie. Would the Old 
Mam' sellers Secret survive re-reading, I wonder? The 
favourites of yesterday have a way of turning into the 
bores of to-day. Not long ago I tried re-reading Scott 
whom in my youth I adored, but his once magnificent 



330 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

heroes liad dwindled into jjuppets, their brilHant exploits 
into the empty bombast of Drury Lane and Wardoin- 
Street. If Scott cannot stand the test, what hope for the 
other old loves? I risk no more lost illusions. 

From no less a distance I looked to Mrs. Rebecca 
Harding Davis who, with Mrs. Wister, helped to supply 
the country with fiction, in her case original, while her son, 
Richard Hardino- Davis, was on the sensational brink 
of his career. And again from a distance I looked to 
P^rank Stockton, with no idea that he was a Philadelphia 
celebrity — very likely every other Philadelphian was as 
ignorant, but that is no excuse for me. I had not found 
him out as my fellow citizen when I saw much of him some 
years later in London, nor did I find it out until recently 
when, distrustful of my Philadelphia tendency to look 
the other way if Philadelphians are distinguishing them- 
selves, 1 consulted the authorities to make sure how great 
or how small was my knowledge of Philadelphia literature. 
From all this it will be seen that in those remote days I was 
very much on the literary outside in Philadelphia, but witli 
the luck there to run up against some of the giants. 

Into the vista of the poets chance gave me one brief 
but more intimate glimpse. In a Germantown house — ^I 
am puzzled at this day to say whose — I was introduced one 
evening to Mrs. Florence Earle Coates and Dr. Francis 
Howard Williams, both already laurel-crowned, at a small 
gathering over which Walt Whitman jjresided. In his grey 
coat and soft shirt I remember he struck me as more 



PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE 3S7 

dressed than the guests in their evening clothes, hut I 
remember he also struck me as less at home in the worship- 
ping parloin- than in the bootblack's corner. The eloquence 
of his presence stands out in my memory vividly, though I 
have forgotten the name of the host or hostess to whom 1 
am indebted for enjoying it, and I think it must have been 
then that I began to suspect there was more of a literary 
life in Philadel2)hia than I had imagined. I had no oppor- 
tunity to get further than my suspicion, for it was very 
shortly after that J. and I undertook to carry out the plans 
we had been making on the old bench by the river in 
Bartram's Garden. Walt Whitman I never saw again, 
and of the group assembled about him nothing for many 
years. 

I came into closer contact with writers to whom litera- 
ture and journalism were not merely a method of ex- 
pression, but a means of livelihood. Philadelphia, with its 
magazines, as with so much else, had shown the way and 
other towns had lost no time in following and getting 
ahead. New York was in the magazine ascendant. The 
Century and Harper's had replaced Grahanis and Godey's 
Lady's Book and Peterson's. But Lippincott's remained, 
and though the Editor, after his cruel letter of refusal, 
never deigned to notice me, it was some satisfaction to have 
been in actual correspondence with an author as dis- 
tinguished as John Foster Kirk, the historian of Charles 
the Bold. When Our Continent was labouring to revive the 
old tradition of Philadelphia as a centre of publishers and 

22 



338 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

periodicals, I got as far as the editorial office — very far 
indeed in my opinion — and there once or twice I saw Judge 
Tourgee, who had abandoned his reconstructive mission 
and judicial duties for an editorial post in Philadelphia, 
and who at the moment was more talked about than any 
American author, his Fool's Errand having given him the 
sort of fame that Looking Backward brought to Bellamy: 
ephemeral, but colossal while it lasted. Curiously, I recall 
nothing of the man himself — not his appearance, his 
manner, his talk. I think it must have been because, for 
me, he was overshadowed by his Art Editor, Miss Emily 
Sartain ; my interest in him eclipsed by my admiration for 
her and my envy of a woman, so yoimg and so handsome, 
who had attained to such an influential and responsible 
post. I thought if I ever should reach half way up so 
stupendous a height, I could die content. Louise Stockton, 
Frank Stockton's sister, and Helen Campbell were on the 
staff, in my eyes amazing women with regular weekly tasks 
and regular weekly salaries. I might argue for my com- 
fort that there was greater liberty in being a free lance, 
but how wonderful to do work that an editor wanted every 
week, was willing to pay for every week! — wonderful to 
me, anyway, who had just had my first taste of earning 
an income, but not of earning it regularly and without 
fail. My Uncle wrote more than once for Tourgee; J. 
and I contributed those articles which were further excuses 
for our walks together: Judge Tourgee, to his own loss, 
thinking it a recommendation for a contributor to be a 



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THE GERMANTOWN ACADEMY 



PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE 341 

Philadelphian as he would not have thought had he known 
his Philadelphia better. Our Continent was too Philadel- 
phian to he approved in Philadelphia or to be in demand 
out of it. One symbol of literary respectability the town 
had in Lippiucott's, and one was as much as it could then 
support. Our Continent came to an end either just before 
or just after J. and I set out on our travels. There were 
other w^omen in journalism who exeited my envy. ]Mrs. 
Lucy Hooper's letters to the Evening Telegraph struck 
me as the last and finest word in foreign correspondence. 
I never, even upon closer acquaintance, lost my awe of 
JMrs. Sarah Hallowell who was intimately associated with 
the Ledger, or of JNIiss Julia Ewing, though her associa- 
tion with the same paper had nothing to do with its literary 
side. 

II 

Xow and then I was stirred to the depths by my 
glimpse of writers from other parts of the world. It was 
only when a prophet was a home product that Philadel- 
phia kept its eyes tight shut ; when the prophet came from 
another town it opened them wide, and its arms wider than 
its eyes, and showed him what a strenuous business it was 
to be the victim of Philadelphia hospitality. It was rather 
pleased if the prophet happened to be a lord, or had a 
handle of some kind to his name, but an author would 
answer for want of something better, especially if he came 
from abroad. No Englishman on a lecture tour was 
allowed to pass by Philadelphia. 



342 OITR PHILADELPHIA 

Immediately on his arrival, the distinguished visitor 
was appropriated by George W. Childs, who had under- 
taken to play in Philadelphia the part of the Lord Mayor 
in the City of London and do the town's official enter- 
taining, and who was known far and wide for it — " he has 
entertained all the English who come over here," Matthew 
Arnold wrote home of him, and visitors of every other 
nationality could have written the same of their own people 
passing through Philadelphia. You would meet him in the 
late afternoon, fresh from the Ledger office, strolling up 
Chestnut Street of which he was another of the conspicu- 
ous figures — not because of any personal beauty, but be- 
cause he did not believe in the Philadelphia practice of 
hiding one's light under a bushel, and had managed to 
make himself known by sight to every other man and 
woman in the street; just as old Richard Vaux was; or 
old " Aunt Ad " Thompson, everybody's aunt, in her bril- 
liant finery, growing ever more brilliant with years; or 
that distinguished lawyer, Ben Brewster, " Burnt-faced 
Brewster," whose genius for the law made every one forget 
the terrible marks a fire in his childhood had left upon his 
face. Philadelphia would not have been Philadelphia 
without these familiar figures. Childs seldom appeared on 
Chestnut Street without Tony Drexel, straight from 
some big operation on the Stock Exchange, the two repre- 
senting all that was most successful in the newspaper 
and banking world of Philadelphia: their friendship 
now commemorated in that new combination of names 



PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATI RE 343 

as familiar to the new and changing generation as 
Cadwallader-Riddle was to the ohl and changeless. Be- 
tween them it was the exception when there was not an 
emperor, or a prince, or an author, or an actor, or some 
other variety of a distinguished visitor being put through 
his paces and shown life in Philadelphia, on the way to the 
house of one or the other and to the feast prepared in his 
honour. At the feast, if there was speaking to be done, it 
was invariably Wayne MacVeagh who did it. As I 
was not greatly in demand at public functions, I heard 
him but once — a memorable occasion which did not, how- 
ever, impress me with the brilliance of his oratory. 

Matthew Arnold, the latest distinguished visitor, was 
to lecture, and I had been looking forward to the evening 
with an ardour for which alas! I have lost the faculty. 
Literary celebrities were still novelties — more than that, 
divinities — in my eyes. Among them, Matthew Arnold 
held particularly high rank, one of the chief heroes of my 
worship, and many of my contemporaries worshipped with 
me. Youth was then, as always, acutely conscious of the 
burden of life, and we made our luxury of his pessimism. 
I could spout whole passages of his poems, whole poems 
when they were short, though now I could not probably 
get further than their titles. There had been a dinner 
first — there always was a dinner first in Philadelphia — and 
a Philadelphia dinner being no light matter, he arrived late. 
The delay would have done no harm had not Wayne Mac- 
Veagh, who presided, introduced him in a speech to which, 



344 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

once it was started, there seemed no end. It went on and 
on, the audience growing restless, with Matthew Arnold 
himself an object of pity, so obvious was his embarrass- 
ment. Few lecturers could have saved the situation, and 
Matthew Arnold would have been a dull one under the 
most favourable circumstances. I went away disillusioned, 
reconciled to meeting my heroes in their books. And I 
could understand when, years later, I read the letters he 
wrote home, why the tulip trees seemed to have as much to 
do as the people in making Philadelphia the most attrac- 
tive city he had seen in America. 

Another distinguished visitor who lectured about this 
period came off more gaily: — Oscar Wilde, to whose 
lecture I had looked forward with no particular excitement, 
for I was young enough to feel only impatience with his 
pose. After listening to him, I had to admit that he was 
amusing. His affected dress, his deliberate posturings, his 
flamboyant phrases and slow lingering over them as if loth 
to let them go, made him an exhilarating contrast to 
Matthew Arnold, shocked as I was by a writer to whom 
literature was not always in dead earnest, nor to teach its 
goal, even though it was part of his pose to ape the teacher, 
the voice in the wilderness. And he was so refreshingly en- 
thusiastic when off the platform, as I saw him afterwards in 
my Uncle's rooms. He let himself go without reserve as he 
recalled the impressions of his visit to Walt Whitman in 
Camden and his meeting with the cowboy in the West. 
To him, the cowboy was the most picturesque product of 















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THE STATE HOUSE FROM INDEPENDENCE SQUARE 



PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATI RL: 347 

America from whom he borrowed hat and cloak and ap- 
peared in them, an amazing spectacle. And I find in some 
prim, priggish, distressingly useless little notes I made at 
the time, that it was a perfect, a supreme moment when he 
talked to Walt Whitman who had been to him the master, 
at whose feet he had sat since he was a young lad, and who 
was as pure and earnest and noble and grand as he had 
hoped. That to Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde seemed " a 
great big splendid boy " is now matter of history. 

I know that Philadelphia entertained Wilde, and so I 
fancy him staying with George W. Childs, dining with 
Tony Drexel, and being talked to after dinner by Wayne 
MacVeagh, though I cannot be sure, as Philadelphia, with 
singular lack of appreciation, included me in none of the 
entertaining. I saw him only in Horticultural Hall, where 
he lectured, and at my LTncle's. This was seeing him often 
enough to be confirmed in my conviction that literature 
might be a stimulating and emotional adventure. 

JNIany interesting people of many varieties were to be 
met in my Uncle's rooms. I remember the George Lath- 
rops who, like Lowell and Poe of old, had come to Phila- 
delphia for work: Lathrop rather embittered and dis- 
appointed, I thought ; Mrs. Lathrop — Rose Hawthorne — 
a marvellous woman in my estimation, not because of her 
beautiful gold-red hair, nor her work, which I do not be- 
lieve was of special importance, but as the daughter of 
Nathaniel Hawthorne and therefore a link between me in 
mj^ insignificance and the great of Brook Farm and Con- 



348 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

cord. I remember editors from Xew York, impressive 
creatures ; and INIembers of Parliament, hangers-on of the 
literary world of London; and actresses, its lions, when in 
England : — Janauschek, heavily tragic off as on the stage, 
for whom my Uncle's admiration was less limited than 
mine; and Miss Genevieve Ward, playing in Forget-Me- 
Not, her one big success, for she failed in the popularity to 
repeat it that comes so easily to many less accomplished. 
How timidly I sat and listened, marvelling to find myself 
there, feeling like the humble who shall be exalted in the 
Bible, looking upon my Uncle's rooms as the literary 
threshold from which I was graciously permitted to watch 
the glorious company within. 

Ill 

I had gone no further than this first, tremulous ardent 
stage in my career when my Uncle deserted his memorable 
rooms never to return, and J. and I started on the journey 
that we thought might last a year — as long as the money 
held out, we had said, to the discomfort of the family who 
no doubt saw me promptly on their hands again — and that 
did not bring me back to Philadelphia for over a quarter 
of a century. Of literary events during my absence, some- 
body else must make the record. 

When I did go back after all those years, I was con- 
scious that there nmst have been events for a record to be 
made of, or I could not have accounted for the change. 
Literature was now in the air. Local prophets were 







'THE LITTLE STREET OE CLUBS, " CA>L\C STREET ABOVE SPRUCE STREET 



PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE 351 

acknowledged, if not by all Philadelphia, by little groups 
of satellites revolving round them. Literary lights had 
come from under the bushel and were shining in high 
places. Societies had been industriously multiplying for 
the encouragement of literature. All such encouragement 
in my time had devolved upon the Pemi Club that patron- 
ized literatin-e, among its other interests, and wrote about 
books in its monthly journal and invited their authors to 
its meetings. During my absence, not only had the Penn 
Club continued to flourish — to such good purpose that J. 
and I were honoured by one of these invitations and felt 
that never again could Fame and Fate bring us such a 
triumphant moment, except when the Academy of Fine 
Arts paid us the same honour and so upset our old belief 
that no Philadelphian could ever be a prophet in Philadel- 
phia! — but Philadelphia had broken out into a multitude 
of Clubs and Societies, beginning with the Franklin Inn, 
for Franklin is not to be got away from even in Clubland, 
and his Inn, I am assured, is the most comprehensive 
literary centre to which every author, every artist, every 
editor, every publisher who thinks himself something be- 
longs to the number of one hundred — ^that there should be 
the chance of one hundred with the right to think them- 
selves something in Philadelphia is the wonder! — and in 
the house in Camac Street, which one Philadelphian I 
know calls " The Little Street of Clubs," the members 
meet for light lunch and much talk and, it may be, other 
rites of which I could speak only from hearsay, my sex 



352 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

disqualifying me from getting my knowledge of them 
at first hand. And there is a Business and Professional 
Club and a Poor Richard, bringing one back to Franklin 
again, in the same Little Street. And there are Browning 
Societies, and Shakespeare Societies, and Drama-Reform- 
ing Societies, and Pegasus Societies, and Societies for 
members to read their own works to each other; and more 
Societies than the parent Society discoursing in the woods 
along the Schuylkill could have dreamed of: with the 
Contemporary Club to assemble their variously divided 
ends and objects under one head, and to entertain litera- 
ture as George W. Childs had entertained it, and, going 
further, to pay literature for being entertained, if literature 
expresses itself in the form of readings and lectures by 
those who practise it professionally. The change dis- 
concerted me more than ever when I, Philadelphia born, 
was assured of a profitable welcome if I would speak to 
the Club on anything. The invitation was tentative and 
unofficial, but the Contemporary Club need be in no 
fear. It may make the invitation official if it will, and 
never a penny the poorer will it be for my presence: I 
am that now rare creature, a shy woman subject to stage 
fright. And I cannot help thinking that, despite the 
amiability to the native, the stranger, simply because he is 
a stranger, continues to have the preference, so many are 
the Englishmen and Englisliwomen invited to deliver 
themselves before the Club who never could gather an 
audience at home. 




■^'^y^^fJ'li^^^$^MW^'^~^ S 



DOWN SANSOM STREET FROM EIGHTH STREET 

THE LOW HOUSES AT SEVENTH STREET HAVE SINCE BEEN TORN DOWN AND THE WESTERN END OF THE CURTIS BUILDING NOW OCCUPIES 

THEIR PLACE 



PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE 355 

And Philadelphia has recaptured the lead in the 
periodical publication that pays, and I found the Curtis 
Building the biggest sky-scraper in Philadelphia, tower- 
ing above the quiet of Independence Square, a brick 
and marble and pseudo-classical monument to the Ladies' 
Hovie Journal and the Saturday Evening Post, and if in 
the race literatiu'e lags behind, what matter when merit is 
vouched for in solid dollars and cents? What matter, 
when the winds of heaven conspire with bricks and mortar 
to make the passer-by respect it? I am told that on a 
windy day no man can pass the building without a fight 
for it, and no woman without the help of stalwart police- 
men. In her own organ of fashion and feminine senti- 
ment, she has raised up a power against which, even with 
the vote to back her, she could not prevail. 

And Philadelphia is not content to have produced the 
first daily newspaper but is bent on making it as big as it 
can be made anywhere. If I preserved my morning 
paper for two or three days in my hotel bedroom, I fairly 
waded in newspapers. On Sundays if I carried up- 
stairs only the Ledger and the North American, I was 
deep in a flood of Comic Supplements, and Photograph 
Supplements, and Sport Supplements, and every possible 
sort of Supplement that any other American newspaper 
in any other American town can boast of — all the sad 
stuff that nobody has time to look at but is what the news- 
paper editor is under the delusion that the public wants — 
in Philadelphia, one genuine Philadelphia touch added 



356 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

in the letters and gossip of " Peggy Shippen " and " Sally 
Wister," names with the double recommendation to Phila- 
delphia of venerable age and unquestionable Philadelphia 
respectability. 

And I found that the Philadelphia writer has increased 
in niuubers and in popularity, whether for better or worse 
I will not say. I have not the courage for the role of 
critic on my own hearth, knowing the penalty for too much 
honesty at home. Xor is there any reason why I should 
hesitate and bungle and make myself unpleasant enemies 
in doing indifferently what Philadelphia, in its new 
incarnation, does with so much grace. I have now but 
to name the Philadelphian's book in Philadelphia to be 
informed that it is monumental — but to mention the 
Philadelphia writer of verse to hear that he is a marvel — 
but to enquire for the Philadelphia writer of prose to be 
assured that he is a genius. There is not the weeest, most 
modest little Philadelphia goose that does not sail along 
valiantly in the Philadelphia procession of swans. The 
new pose is prettier than the old if scarcely more success- 
ful in preserving a sense of proportion, and it saves me 
from committing myself. I can state the facts that strike 
me, without prejudice, as the lawyers say. 

IV 

One is that the last quarter of a century has interested 
the Philadelphia writer in Philadelphia as he had not been 
since the days of John Watson. JNIost Philadelphians 



nilLADELPIIIA AND LITERATI RE 357 

owned a copy of Watson's Annals. I have one on my 
desk before me that belonged to J.'s Father, one must 
have been in my Grandfatlier's highly correct Phila- 
delphia house, though 1 cannot recall it there, for a 
Philadelphian's duty was to buy Watson just as it was to 
take in Lippincott's, and Philadelphians never shirked 
their obligations. They probably would not have been 
able to say what w^as in Watson, or, if they coidd, would 
have shrugged their shoulders and dismissed him for a 
crank. But they w^ould have ow^ned the Annals, all the 
same. Then the Centennial shook them up and insisted on 
the value of Philadelphia's history, and Philadelphians 
were no longer in fashion if they did not feel, or affect, 
an interest in Philadelphia and its past. After the Cen- 
tennial the few who began to write about it could rely 
upon the many to read about it. 

Once, the Philadelphian who was not ashamed to write 
stories made them out of the fashionable life of Philadel- 
phia. Dr. Weir ]Vlitchell inaugurated the new era, or the 
revolt, or the secession, or whatever name may be given 
it w^ith the first historical novel of Philadelphia. It is 
fortunate, \vhen I come to Hugh Wynne, that I have re- 
nounced criticism and all its pretences. As a Friend by 
marriage, if such a thing is possible, I cannot underesti- 
mate the danger. Only a Friend born a Friend is quali- 
fied to write the true Quaker novel, and I am told by this 
kind of Friend that Hugh Wijnne is not free from mis- 
representations, misconceptions and misunderstandings. 



358 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

This may be true— I breathe more freely for not being 
able to affirm or to deny it — but, as Henley used to say, 
there it is — the first romantic gold out of the mine Phila- 
delphia history is for all who work it. Since these lines 
were written the news has reached me that never again 
will Dr. Mitchell work this or any other mine. I cannot 
imagine Philadelphia without him. When I last saw him, 
it seemed to me that no Philadelphian was more alive, 
more in love with life, better equipped to enjoy life in the 
way Philadelphia has fashioned it— the Philadelphia life 
in which his passing away must leave no less a gap than 
the disappearance of the State House or the Pennsylvania 
Hospital would leave in the Philadelphia streets. If Dr. 
Mitchell's digging brought up the romance of Philadel- 
phia, Mr. Sydney George Fisher's has unearthed the facts, 
for Philadelphia was the root of the great growth of Penn- 
sylvania which is the avowed subject of his history. And 
the men who helped to make this history have now their 
biographers at home, though hitherto the task of their 
biography had been left chiefly to anybody anywhere else 
who would accept the responsibility, and my Brother, Ed- 
ward Robins, Secretary of the University of Pennsylvania, 
has written the life of Benjamin Franklin, without whom 
the University would not have been, at least would not 
have been what it is. And in so many different directions 
has the interest spread that my friend since Our Convent 
Days, Miss Agnes Repplier, has taken time from her 




THE DOUBLE STAIRWAY IN THE PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL 



PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE 361 

studies in literature and from building a monument to her 
beloved Agri^jpina to write its story. When she sent me 
her book, I opened it with grave apprehensions. In the 
volumes she had published, humour was the chief charm, 
and how would humour help her to see Philadelphia? I 
need not have been uneasy. There is no true humour 
without tenderness. If she had her smile for the towii 
we all love, as we all have, it was a tender smile, and I 
think no reader can close her book without wanting to 
know still more of Philadelphia than it was her special 
business in that place to tell them. And that no vein of 
the Philadelphia mine might be left unworked, Miss Anne 
Hollingsworth Wharton has busied herself to gather up 
old traditions and old reminiscences, dipping into old 
letters and diaries, opening wide Colonial doorways, resur- 
recting Colonial Dames, reshaping the old social and do- 
mestic life disdained by historians. The numerous editions 
into which her books have gone explain that she has not 
worked for her own edification alone, that Philadelphia, 
once it was willing to hear any talk about itself, could not 
hear too much. And after INIiss Wharton have come Mr. 
INIather Lippincott and Mr. Eberlein to collect the old 
Colonial houses and their memories, followed by ISlr. 
Herbert C. Wise and Mr. Beidleman to study their archi- 
tecture: just in time if Philadelphia perseveres in its crime 
of moving out of the houses for the benefit of the Russian 
Jew and of mixing their memories with squalor. Of all 



362 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

the ways in which Philadelphia has changed, none is to me 
more remarkable than in this rekindling of interest out 
of which has sprung the new group of writers in its praise. 
Nor were the Philadelphia poets idle during my ab- 
sence. Dr. Mitchell had not before sung so freely in public, 
nor had he ranked, as I am told he did at the end, his. 
verse higher than his medicine. Mrs. Coates' voice had 
not carried so far. Dr. Francis Howard Williams had not 
rhymed for Pageants in praise of Philadelphia. Mr. 
Harrison Morris had not joined the Philadelphia choir. 
Mr. Harvey M. Watts had not been heard in the land. I 
have it on good authority that yearly the Philadelphia 
poets meet and read their verses to each other, a custom of 
which I cannot speak from personal knowledge as I have 
no passport into the magic circle, and perhaps it is just as 
well for my peace of mind that I have not. Rumour de- 
clares that, on certain summer evenings, a suburban porch 
here or there is made as sweet with their singing as with the 
perfume of the roses and syringa in the garden, and I am 
content with the rumour for there is always the chance the 
music might not be so sweet if I heard it. I like to re- 
member that the poets on their porch, whether their voices 
be sweet or harsh, descend in a direct line from the young 
men who wandered, discoursing of literature, along the 
Schuylkill. And Philadelphia's love of poetry is to be 
assured not only by its own singers but by its care, now 
as in the past, for the song of others. Horace Howard 



PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE 363 

Furness, Jr., has taken over his father's task and, in so 
doing, will see that Philadelphia eontinues to be famous 
for the most complete edition of Shakespeare. 

There had been equal activity during my absence 
among the story-tellers. Since Brockden Brown, not one 
had written so ambitious a tale as Hugh Wynne, not one 
had ever laughed so good-humouredly at Philadelphia as 
Thomas A. Janvier in his short stories of the Hutchinson 
Ports and Rittenhouse Smiths — what gaiety has gone out 
with his death! Not one had ever seen character with such 
truth as Owen Wister, — if only he could understand that 
as good material awaits him in Philadelphia as in Vir- 
ginia and Wyoming. And John Luther Long is another 
of the story-tellers Philadelphia can claim though, like 
Mr. Wister, he shows a greater fancy for far-away lands 
or to wander among strange people at home. 

There is no branch of literature that Philadelphia has 
not taken under its active protection. Who has con- 
tributed more learnedly to the records of the Inquisition 
than Henry Charles Lea, or to the chronicles of the law in 
the United States than Mr. Hampton L. Carson and Mr. 
Charles Burr, duly conscious as Philadelphia lawyers 
should be of the Philadelphian's legal responsibility? Who 
can compete in kno'v^'ledge of the evolution of the playing 
card with Mrs. John King Van Rensselaer or rival her 
collection? Who ever thought of writing the history of 
autobiography before Mrs. Anna Robeson Burr? The 



364 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

time had but to come for an admirer to play the Boswell 
to Walt Whitman, and JNIr. Traubel appeared. When 
Columbia wanted a Professor of Journalism, Philadel- 
phia sent it Dr. Talcott Williams. When England seemed 
a comfortable shelter for research there was no need to be 
in a hiu'ry about, IVIr. Logan Pearsall Smith showed what 
could be done with an exhaustive study of Dr. Donne, 
though why he was not showing instead what could be 
done with the Loganian Library, where the chance to 
show it was his for the claiming, he alone can say. When 
such recondite subjects as Egyptian and Assyrian called 
for interpreters, Philadelphia was again on the spot with 
Mrs. Cornelius Stevenson and Dr. Morris Jastrow. And 
for authorities on the drama and history, it gives us ]VIr. 
Felix Schelling and Dr. MclNIaster, — but perhaps for me 
to attempt to complete the list would only be to make it 
incomplete. Here, too, I tread on dangerous ground. It 
may be cowardly, but it is safe to give the tribute of my 
recognition to all that is being accomplished by the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania and its scholars — by Bryn Mawr 
College and its students — by the Historical Society of 
Pennsylvania — by other Colleges and learned bodies — 
by innumerable individuals — and not invite exposure by 
venturing into detail and upon comment. It is in these 
emergencies that the sense of my limitations comes to 
my help. 

At least I am not afraid to say that, on my return, I 






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X, 



CARPENTERS HALL, BUILT 1771 



PHILADELPHIA AND LITERATURE 367 

fancied 1 found this side of Philadelphia life less a side 
apart, less isolated, more identified with the social side, 
and tlie social side, for its part, accepting the identification. 
The University and Bryn JNIawr could not have played 
the same social part in the Philadelphia 1 remember. Per- 
haps I shall express what I mean more exactly if I say 
that, returning- with fresh eyes, I saw Philadelphia ready 
and pleased, as I had not remembered it, to acknowledge 
•openly talents and activities it once made believe to ignore 
or despise — to go further really and, having for the first 
time squarely faced its accomplishments, for the first time 
to blow its own trumpet. The new spirit is one I approve. 
I would not call all the work that comes out of Philadel- 
phia monumental, as some Philadelphians do, or Phila- 
delphia itself a modern Athens, or the hub of the literary 
universe, or any other absurd name. But I do think that 
in literature and learning it is now contributing, as it 
always has contributed, its fair share to the country, and 
that if Philadelphia does not say so, the rest of the country 
will not, for the rest of the country is still under the delu- 
sion that Philadelphia knows how to do nothing but sleep. 



CHAPTER XIV: PHILADELPHIA AND ART 

I 

IGNORANCE of art and all relating to it could not 
have been greater than mine when I paid that first 
eventful visit to J.'s studio on Chestnut Street. 
I lay the blame only partly on my natural capacity 
for ignorance. It was a good deal the fault of the sort of 
education I received and the influences among which I 
lived — the fault of the place and the period in which I 
grew up. Nominally, art was not neglected at the Con- 
vent. A drawing-class was conducted by an old bear of a 
German, who also gave music lessons, and who pros- 
pered so on his monopoly of the arts with us that he was 
able to live in a delightful cottage down near the river. 
Drawing was an " extra " of which I was never thought 
worthy, but I used to see the class at the tables set out for 
the purpose in the long low hall leading to the Chapel, 
the master grumbling and growling and scolding, the 
pupils laboriously copying with crayon or chalk little 
cubes and geometrical figures or, at a more advanced 
stage, the old-fashioned copy-book landscape and build- 
ing, rubbing in and rubbing out, wrestling with the com- 
position as if it were a problem in algebra. The Convent 
could take neither credit, nor discredit, for the system; 
it was the one then in vogue in every school, fashionable 







ml ' 






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i- 






INDEPENDENCE HALL— LENGTHWISE VIEW 



PHILADELPHIA AND ART 371 

or otherwise, and not so far removed, after all, from 
systems followed to this day in certain Academies of Art. 

Another class was devoted to an art then considered 
very beautifnl, called Grecian Painting. It was not my 
privilege to stndy this either, but I gathered from friends 
who did that it was of the simplest: on the back of an 
engraving, preferably of a religious subject and pre- 
pared by an ingenious process that made it transparent, 
the artist dabbed his colours according to written instruc- 
tions. The result, glazed and framed, w^as supposed to 
resemble, beyond the detection of any save an expert, a 
real oil painting and was held in high esteem. 

A third class was in the elegant art of making wax 
flowers and, goodness knows why, my Father squandered 
an appreciable sum of his declining fortunes on having me 
taught it. I am the more puzzled by his desire to bestow 
upon me this accomplishment because none of the other 
girls' fathers shared his ambition for their daughters and 
I was the only member of the class. Alone, in a room at 
the top of the house — chosen no doubt for the light, as if 
the deeds there done ought not to have been shrouded in 
darkness — I worked many hours under the tuition of 
Mother Alicia, cutting up little sheets of wax into leaves 
and petals, colouring them, sticking them together, and 
producing in the end two horrible masterpieces — one a 
water-lily placed on a mirror under a glass shade, the 
other a basket of carnations and roses and camelias — both 
of which masterpieces my poor family, to avoid hurting 



372 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

my feelings, had to place in the parlour and keep there 1 
blush to remember how long. It must be admitted that 
this was scarcely an achievement to encourage an interest 
in art. For the appreciation of art, as for its practice, it 
is important to have nothing to unlearn from the begin- 
ning; mine was the sort of training to reduce me to the 
necessity of unlearning everything; and most of my con- 
temporaries, on leaving school, were in the same plight. 
My eyes were no better trained than my hands. Works 
of art at the Convent consisted of the usual holy statues 
designed for our spiritual, not aesthetic edification; the 
Stations of the Cross whose merit was no less spiritual; 
two copies of Murillo and Rafael which my Father, in the 
fervour of conversion, presented to the Mother Superior; 
and a picture of St. Elizabeth of Hungary that adorned 
the Convent parlour, where we all felt it belonged, such 
a marvel to us was its combination of brilliantly-coloured 
needle-and-brush work. 

Illustrated books there must have been in the ill- 
assorted hodge-podge of a collection in the Library from 
which we obtained our reading for Thursday afternoons 
and Sundays. But though I doubt if there was a book 
I had not sampled, even if I had not been able to read it 
straight through, I can recall no illustrations except the 
designs by Rossetti, Millais, and Holman Hunt, made 
for Moxon's Tennyson and reproduced by the Harpers 
for a cheap American edition of the Poems, a copy 
of which was given to me one year as a prize. Little 



PHILADELPHIA AND ART 373 

barbarian as I was, I disliked tbe drawings of tbe Pre- 
Ka])liaelites l)ec'ause they mystified me — the Lady of 
Shalott, entangled in her wide floating web, the finest 
drawing Holman Hnnt ever made; the company of weep- 
ing queens in the Vale of Avalon, in Rossetti's harmo- 
niousl}^ crowded design^when I flattered myself I under- 
stood everything that was to be understood, more espe- 
cially Tennyson's Poems, many of which I could recite 
glibly from beginning to end — and did recite diligently to 
myself at hours when I ought to have been busy with the 
facts and figures in the class books before me. Most 
people, young or old, dislike anything which shows them 
how much less they understand than they think they do. 

Of the history of art I was left in ignorance as abject, 
the next to nothing I knew gleaned from a Lives of the 
Artists adapted to children, a favoiu'ite book in the 
Library, one providing me with the theme for my sole 
serious effort in drama — a three-act play, jNIichael Angelo 
its hero, w^hich, with a success mau}^ dramatists might 
envy, I wrote, produced, acted in, and found an audience 
of good-natured nuns for, all at the ripe age of eleven. 

II 

When I left the Convent for the holidays and eventu- 
ally " for good," little in my new surroundings was cal- 
culated to increase my knowledge of art or to teach me the 
first important fact, as a step to knowledge, that I knew 
absolutely nothing on the subject. In my Grandfather's 



374 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

house, art was represented by the family portraits, the 
engraving after Gilbert Stuart's Washington, the illus- 
trated lamp shade, and the Rogers Group. My Father, 
re-established in a house of his own, displayed an unac- 
countably liberal taste, straying from the Philadelphia 
standard to the extent of decorating his parlour walls 
with engravings of Napoleon he had picked up in Paris — 
to one, printed in colour, attaching a value which I doubt 
if the facts would justify, though, as I have never come 
across it in any collection, JNIuseum, or Gallery, it may be 
rarer and, therefore, more valuable, than I think. Other 
fruits of his old journeys to Paris were two engravings, 
perhaps after Guys, of two famous ladies of that town, 
whose presence in our prim and proper and highly do- 
mestic dining-room seems to me the most incongruous 
accident in an otherwise correctly-appointed Philadelphia 
household. When I think of Napoleon replacing Wash- 
ington on our walls, I suspect my Father of having broken 
loose from the Philadelphia traces in his youth, though 
by the time I knew him the prints were the only signs of a 
momentary dash for freedom on the part of so scrupulous 
a Philadelphian. 

It is curious that illustrations should have as small a 
place in my memory of home life as of the Convent. The 
men of the Golden Age of the Sixties had published their 
best work long before I had got through school, and in my 
childhood books gave me mv chief amusement. But I 



PHILx\DELPHIA AND ART 375 

remember nothing- of tlieir fine designs. The earlier 
Cruikshank drawings for Dickens 1 knew well in the 
American edition which my Father owned, and never so 
long as I live can 1 see the Dickens world except as it 
is shown in the miicli over-rated Cruikshank interpreta- 
tions. Other memories are of the highly-finished, senti- 
mental steel-engravings of Scott's heroines, including Meg 
Merrilies, whom I still so absurdly associate with Crazy 
Norah. Another series of portraits, steel-engravings, as 
highly-finished and but slightly less insipid, illustrated my 
Father's edition of Thiers' French Revolution through 
which, one conscientious winter, I considered it my duty 
to wade. And I recall also the large volumes of photo- 
graphs after Rafael and other masters that, in the 
Eighteen- Seventies, came into fashion for Christmas 
presents and parlour-table books, and that I think must 
have heralded the new departure the Centennial is sup- 
posed to have inaugurated. 

If I try to picture to myself the interior of the houses 
where I used to visit, art in them too seems best repre- 
sented by family portraits no more remarkable than my 
Grandfather's, by the engraving of Stuart's Washington, 
or of Penn signing the Treaty with the Indians, or of the 
American Army crossing the Delaware, all three part of 
the traditional decoration of the Philadelphia hall and 
dining-room, and by a Rogers Group and an illustrated 
lamp shade. The library in which a friend first showed 



376 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

me a volume of Hogarth's engravings I remember as ex- 
ceptional. But I have an idea that had I possessed greater 
powers of appreciation then, I should have a keener 
memory now of other houses full of interesting pictures 
and prints and illustrated books, which I did not see simply 
because my eyes had not been trained to see them. 

Certainly, there were Philadelphia collections of these 
things then, as there always have been — only they were 
not heard of and talked about as they are now, or, if they 
were, it was to dismiss their collecting as an amiable fad. 
Mr. John S. Phillips had got together the engravings 
Avhich the Pennsylvania Academy is to-day happy to 
possess. People who were interested did not have to be 
told that Mr. Claghorn's collection was perhaps the finest 
in the country; J. was one of the wise minority, and often 
on Sundays took advantage of Mr. Claghorn's generosity 
in letting anybody with the intelligence to realize the 
privilege come to look at his prints and study them; but 
I, who had not learned to be interested, knew nothing of 
the collection mitil I knew J. Gebbie and Barrie's store 
flourished in Walnut Street as it hardly could had there 
not been people in Philadelphia, as Gebbie once wrote to 
Frederick Keppel, who collected " these smoky, poky 
old prints." Gebbie and Barrie have gone, but Barrie re- 
mains, a publisher of art books, and there are other dealers 
no less important and perhaps more enterprising, who 
prosper, as one of them has recently assured me they could 
not, if they depended for their chief support upon Phila- 






















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rillLADELPIIIA AND ART 379 

delphia. J5iit I'hiladelphia <jives, as it gave, solid founda- 
tions of support, with the difference that to-day it takes 
good care the world should know it. 

A few Philadelphians collected pictures. One of the 
show places, more select and exclusive than the Mint and 
Girard College, for the rare visitor to the town with a soul 
above dancing and dining, was Mr. Gibson's gallery in 
AValnut Street, open on stated days to anybody properly 
introduced, or it may be that only a visiting card with a 
proper address was necessary for admission. The less I 
say about the Gallery the better, for I never went to Mr. 
Gibson's myself, though I knew the house as I passed it for 
one apart in Philadelphia — one where so un-Philadelphia- 
like a possession as a picture gallery was allowed to dis- 
turb the Philadelphian's first-story arrangement of front 
and back parlours. The collection can now be visited, 
without any jDreliminary formalities, at the Academy of 
Fine Arts. ]Mrs. Bloomfield Moore was still living in 
Philadelphia and she must have begun collecting though, 
well as I knew the inside of her house in my young days, 
I hesitate to assert it as a fact — which shows my unpardon- 
able blindness to most things in life worth while. I never, 
as far as I remember, went anywhere for the express pur- 
pose of looking at paintings. I had not even the curiosity 
which is the next best thing to knowledge and understand- 
ing. I have said how meagre are my impressions of the 
old Academy on Chestnut Street. It is a question to 
me whether I had ever seen more than the outside of the 



380 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

new Academy at Broad and Cherry Streets before I met 
J. To go to the exhibitions there had not as yet come 
within the hst of things Philadelphians who were not 
artists made a point of doing. Altogether, judging from 
my own recollections, Philadelphians did not bother about 
art, and did not stop to ask whether there was any to 
bother about in Philadelphia, or not. 

Ill 

Their indifference was their loss. The art, with a 
highly respectable pedigree, was there for Philadelphia to 
enjoy and be proud of, if Philadelphia had not been as 
reticent about it as about all its other accomplishments 
and possessions. I have a decided suspicion that I have 
come to a subject about which I might do well to observe 
the same reticence, not only as a Philadelphian, but as the 
wife of an artist. For if, as the wife of a Friend, I have 
learned that only Friends are qualified to write of them- 
selves, as the wife of an artist I have reason to believe 
it more discreet to leave all talk of art to artists, though 
discretion in this regard has not been one of the virtues 
of my working life. But just now, I am talking not so 
much of art as of my attitude towards art which must have 
been the attitude of the outsider in Philadelphia, or else it 
would not have been mine. As for the genealogy of Phila- 
delphia art, it is, like the genealogy of Philadelphia 
families, in the records of the town for all who will to read. 

In the very beginning of things Philadelphia may have 



PHILADELPHIA AND ART 381 

had no more iJressing need for the artist's studio tlian for 
the writer's study. But it was surprising how soon its 
needs expanded in this direction. Enghsh and other 
European critics deplore the absence of an original — or 
aboriginal — school of art in America, as if they thought 
the American artist should unconsciously have lost, on his 
way across the Atlantic, that inheritance from centuries 
of civilization and tradition which the modern artist who 
calls himself Post-Impressionist is deliberately endeavor- 
ing to get rid of, and on his arrival have started all over 
again like a child with a clean slate. Only an American 
art based on the hieroglyphics and war paint of the 
Indians would satisfy the critic with this preconceived 
idea. But the first American artists were not savages, 
they were not primitives. They did not paint pictures 
like Indians any more than the first American architects 
built wigwams like Indians, or the first American Colo- 
nials dressed themselves in beads and feathers like 
Indians. Colonials had come from countries w^here art 
was highly developed, and they could no more forget 
the masters at home than they could forget the literature 
upon which they and their fathers had been nourished. 
If years passed before a Philadelphian began to paint 
pictures, it was because Philadelphians had not time to 
paint as they had not time to write. The wonder really 
is that they began so soon — that so soon the artist got 
to work, and so soon there was a public to care enough 
for his work to enable him to do it. 



382 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

In a thousand ways the interest of Philadelphians 
in art expressed itself. It is written large in the beauty 
of their houses and in their readiness to introduce orna- 
ment where ornament belonged. The vine and cluster 
qf grapes carved on William Penn's front door; the 
panelling and woodwork in Colonial houses; the decora- 
tion of a public building like the State House; the 
furniture, the silver, the china, we pay small fortunes 
for when we can find them and have not inherited them; 
the single finely-proportioned mirror or decorative sil- 
houette on a white wall; the Colonial rooms that have 
come down to us untouched, perfect in their simplicity, not 
an ornament too many; — all show which way the wind of 
art blew. 

There was hardly one of the great men from any 
American town, makers of first the Revolution and then 
the Union, who did not appreciate the meaning and im- 
portance of art and did not leave a written record, if only 
in a letter, of his appreciation. Few things have struck 
me more in reading the Correspondence and Memoirs and 
Diaries of the day. But these men were not only 
patriots, they were men of intelligence, and they knew 
the folly of expecting to find in Philadelphia or New 
York or Boston the same beautiful things that in Paris 
or London or Italy filled them with delight and admira- 
tion, or of seeing in this fact a reason to lower their 
standard. The critics who are shocked because we have 
no aboriginal school might do worse than read some of 




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IMIILADELPIIIA AND ART 385 

these old (loeumeiits. I reeoiiiineiul in partieular a 
passage i?i a letter John Adams wrote to his wife from 
Paris. It impressed me so Axheii I eame upon it, it 
seemed to me sueh an admirahle explanation of a situa- 
tion ])erplexing to crities, that I copied it in my note- 
book, and I cannot resist quoting it now. 

"It is not indeed the fine arts which our country 
retpiires," he writes, " the useful, the mechanic arts are 
those which we have occasion for in a young country as 
yet simple and not far advanced in luxury, although 
much too far for her age and character. . . . The science 
of government it is my duty to study, more than all other 
sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and 
negotiation ought to take place of, indeed to exclude, 
in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and 
war, that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics 
and philosophy. My sons ought to stud}' mathematics 
and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval 
architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture, in 
order to give their children a right to study painting, 
poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and 
porcelain." 

John Adams and his contemporaries may not have had 
American grandfathers with the leisure to earn for them 
the right to study art, but they did not ignore it. All the 
time they felt its appeal and responded to the appeal as 
well as busy men, absorbed in the development of a new 
country, could. They got themsehes painted whenever 

25 



386 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

they happened to combine the leisure to sit and a painter 
to sit to. When a statesman like Jefferson, who con- 
fessed himself " an enthusiast on the subject of the arts," 
was sent abroad, he devoted his scant leisure to securing the 
best possible sculptor for the statue of Washington, or the 
best possible models for public buildings at home. Much 
that we now prize in architectiu'e and design we owe to 
the men who supposed themselves too occupied with 
politics and war to encourage art and artists. They were 
not too busy to provide the beauty without which liberty 
would have been a poor affair — not too busy to welcome 
the first Americans who saw to it that all the beauty 
should not be imported from Europe. " After the first 
cares for the necessaries of life are over, we shall come to 
think of the embellishments," Franklin wrote to his Lon- 
don landlady's daughter. " Already some of our young 
geniuses begin to lisp attempts at painting, poetry and 
music. We have a young painter now studying at Rome." 
In this care for the embellishments of life, of so much 
more real importance than the necessaries, Philadelphia 
was the first town to take the lead, though Philadelphians 
have since gone out of their way to forget it. The old 
Quaker lady in her beautiful dress, preserving her beauti- 
ful repose, in her beautiful old and historic rooms, shows 
the Friends' instinctive love of beauty even if they never 
intentionally, or deliberately, undertook to create it. For 
the most beautiful of what we now call Colonial furniture 
produced in the Colonies, Philadelphia is given the credit 






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PIIILADKLPIIIA AND ART 389 

by authorities on the .siil)jeet. l^'i'aiikliirs letters could 
also be (juoted to show I'hihulelphians' keenness to have 
their portraits done in " conversation " or " family " 
pieces, or alone in miniatures, whichever were most in 
vogue. Kven Friends, before Franklin, when they visited 
England sought out a fashionable portrait-painter like 
Kneller because he was supposed the best. Artists from 
England came to Philadelphia for commissions, artists 
from other Colonies drifted there, — ^Peale, Stuart, Cop- 
ley. Philadel2)hia, in return, spared its artists to Eng- 
land, and the Royal Academy was forced to rely upon 
Philadelphia for its second President — Benjamin West. 
The artist's studio in Philadelphia had become a place of 
such distinction by the Revolution that members of the 
first Congress felt honoured themselves when allowed 
to honour it with their presence — in the intervals between 
legislating and dining. The Philadelphian to-day, goaded 
by the moss-grown jest over Philadelphia slowness and 
want of enterprise into giving the list of Philadelphia 
" firsts," or the things Philadelphia has been the first to 
do in the country, can include among them the picture 
exhibition which Philadelphia was the first to hold, and 
the Pennsylvania Academy which was the first Academy 
of the Fine Arts instituted in America. Philadelphia was 
the richest American town and long the Capital; the 
marvel would be if it had not taken the lead in art as in 
politics. 



CHAPTER XV: PHILADELPHIA 
AND ART— CONTINUED 

I 

BY the time I grew up years had passed since 
Philadelphia had ceased to be the Capital, and 
' during these years its atmosphere had not been 
especially congenial to art. But the general conditions 
had not been more stimulating anywhere in America. 
The Hudson River School is about all that came of a 
period which, for that matter, owed its chief good to 
revolt in countries where more was to be expected of 
it: in France, to first the Romanticists and then the 
Impressionists who had revolted against the Academic; 
in England to the Pre-Raphaelites who, with noisy adver- 
tisement, broke away from Victorian convention. Art in 
America had not got to the point of development when 
there was anything to revolt against or to break away 
from. What it needed was a revival of the old interest, 
a reaction from the prevailing indifference to all there 
was of art in the country. 

Some say this came in Philadelphia with the Cen- 
tennial. The Centennial's stirring up, however, would not 
have done much good had not artists already begun to stir 
themselves up. How a number of Americans who had 
been studying in Paris and Munich returned to America 
full of youth and enthusiasm in the early Eighteen-Seven- 

390 




THE OLD WATER-WORKS, FAIRAIOUNT PARK 



rillLADELPIIIA AND ART 393 

tics, there to lead a new inoveineiit in American art, has 
long since passed into history — also the fact that one of 
tile most remarka})le outcomes of this new movement was 
the new school of illustration that (juickly made American 
illustrated hooks and mag-azines famous throughout the 
^^()J•1(I. Hut what concerns me as a l*hiladel])hian is that, 
once more at this critical moment, Philadelphia took the 
lead. The puhlishers of the illustrated hooks and maga- 
zines may have heen chiefly in New York, the illustrations 
were chiefly from Philadelphia, and there is no reason 
why Philadelphia should not admit it with decent pride. 
Ahhey and Frost were actually, Howard Pyle and Smed- 
ley virtually, Philadelphians. Blum and Erennan passed 
through the Academy Schools. J., when 1 met him, was 
at the threshold of his career. And the illustrators were 
hut a younger offshoot of the new Philadelphia group. 
^liss Mary Cassatt had already started to work in Paris, 
where Jules Stewart and Ridgway Knight represented 
the older Philadelphia school; ]Mrs. Anna I.ea Merritt was 
already in London; J. JNIcLure Hamilton had finished his 
studies at Antwerp; Alexander and Birge Harrison had 
been heard of in Paris where Sargent — who belongs to 
Philadelphia if to any American town — had carried off his 
first honom-s. At home Richards was painting his marines ; 
Poore had begun his study of animals ; Dana, I think, was 
beginning his water-colours; William Sartain had long 
been known as an engraver; JNIiss Emily Sartain was an 
art editor and soon to be the head of an art school; the 



394 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

Moran family, with the second generation, had become 
ahiiost a Philadelphia institution; from Stephen Ferris 
J. could learn the technic of etching as from the Claghorn 
collection he could trace its development through the 
ages; and of the younger men and women, his con- 
temporaries, he did not leave me long in ignorance. 

My own work had led me to the discovery of so many 
worlds of work in Philadelphia, I could not have believed 
there was room for another. But there was, and the artists^ 
world was so industrious, so full of energy, so sufficient 
unto itself, so absorbed in itself, that, with the first glimpse 
into it, the difficulty was to believe space and reason could 
be left for any outside of it. This new experience was as 
extraordinary a revelation as my initiation into the news- 
paper world. I had been living, without suspecting it, 
next door to people who thought of nothing, talked of 
nothing, occupied themselves with nothing, but art : people 
for whom a whole army of men and women were busily 
employed, managing schools, running factories, keeping 
stores, putting up buildings — delightful people with whom 
I could not be two minutes without reproaching myself 
for not having known from the cradle that nothing in life 
save art ever did count, or ever could. And at this point 
I can afford to get ]-id of Philadelphia reticence with- 
out scruple since through this, to me, new world of work 
I had the benefit of J.'s guidance. 

It was a moment when it had got to be the fashion 
for artists in all the studios in the same building to give 



PHILADELPHIA AND ART 395 

receptions on the same day, and I learned that J.'s, so 
strange to me at first, was only one of an endless number. 
For part of my new experience was the round of the 
studios on the appointed day, when I was too oppressed 
by my ignorance and my desire not to expose it and my 
uncertainty as to what was the right thing to say in front 
of a picture, that 1 do not remember much besides, except 
the miniatures of Miss Van Tromp and the marines of 
Prosper Senat, and why they should now stand out from 
the confused jumble of my memories I am sure I cannot 
see. 

Then J. took me to the Academy of Fine Arts and it 
was revealed to me as a place not to pass by but to go 
inside of: artists from all over the country struggling to 
get in for its annual exhibition of paintings which already 
had a reputation as one of the finest given in the country ; 
artists from all over the world drawn in for its inter- 
national exhibitions of etchings — Whistler, Seymour 
Haden, Appian, Lalanne, a catalogue-full of etchers intro- 
duced for the first time to my uneducated eyes; everybody 
who could crowding in on Thursday afternoons to sit on 
the stairs and listen to the music, while I upbraided myself 
for not having known ages ago what delightful things 
there were to do, instead of letting my time hang heavy 
on my hands, in Philadelphia. 

J. had me invited to more private evenings and re- 
unions of societies of artists, and I remember — if they do 
not — meeting many who were at the very heart of the 



396 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

machinery that made tlie wheels of the new movement go 
round: — Mr. Leslie ^liller, the director of the School of 
Industrial Art from which promising students were 
emerging or had emerged; Stephen Parrish and Blanche 
Dillaye and Gabrielle Clements, whose etchings were 
with the Whistlers and the Seymour Hadens in the inter- 
national exhibitions; Alice Barber full of commissions from 
magazines; jNIargaret I^eslie and Mary Trotter in their 
fervent apprenticeship; Boyle and Stephens the sculptors; 
Colin Cooper and Stephens the painters. What a rank 
outsider I felt in their company! And how grateful I 
was for my talent as a listener that helped to save me 
from exposure ! 

II 

I saw another side of the revival at my LTncle's Indus- 
trial Art School in the eagerness of teachers and pupils 
both to know and to learn and to practise — an eagerness 
that had, I fear, an eye to ultimate profit. That was the 
worst feature of the booming of art in the Eighteen- 
Eighties, Gain was the incentive that drove too many 
students to the art schools of Pliiladelphia as to those of 
Paris, or I.,ondon, and set countless amateurs in their own 
homes to hammering brass and carving wood and stamp- 
ing leather. Art was to them an investment, a speculation, 
a gentlemanly — or ladylike — way of making a fortune. 
An English painter I know told me a few years since that 
he had put quite six thousand pounds into art, what with 
studying and travelling for subjects, and he thought he 






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PHILADELPHIA AND ART 399 

had a right to look for a decent return on his money. That 
expresses the attitude of a vast number of Philadelphians 
in their new acti\'e enthusiasm. However trumpery the 
amount of labour they invested, they counted on it to 
bring them in a big dividend in dollars and cents. 

I am afraid my Uncle, without meaning to, encouraged 
this spirit, when he started not only the Industrial Art 
School, but the Decorative Art Club in Pine Street. He 
W'as an optimist and saw only the beautiful side of anything 
he was interested in. To please him I was made the Treas- 
urer of the Club. The Committee sympathised with my 
Uncle and worked for the ultimate good he thought the 
Club was to accomplish in Philadelphia. Mrs. Harrison, 
Mrs. INIifflin, Mrs, Pepper, Miss Julia Biddle with whom I 
served, agreed with him that women who had some training 
in art would understand better the meaning of art and the 
pleasure of the stimulus this understanding could give. 
]My Uncle, however, always ready to do anybody a good 
turn, went further and was anxious that provision should 
also be made to sell the work done in the Club, which in 
this way would be open to many who could not otherwise 
afford it. I fancy that this provision, if not the success of 
the Club, was one of its chief attractions. The amateur 
is apt to believe she can romp in gaily and snatch what- 
ever prizes are going by playing with the art which is the 
life's work, mastered by toil and travail, of the artist. 

I criticise now, but in my new ardour I saw nothing 
to criticise. On the contrary, I saw perfection : artists and 



400 OT R PHILADELPHIA 

students encouraged, occupations and interests lavished 
upon amateurs whose lives had been as empty as mine; 
and I worked myself up into a fine enthusiasm of belief 
in art as a new force, or one that if it had always existed 
had been waiting for its prophet, — just as electricity had 
waited for Franklin to capture and apply it to human 
needs. I went so far in my exaltation as to write an in- 
spired — or so it seemed to me — article on Art as the New 
Religion, proving that the old religions having perished 
and the old gods fallen, art had re-arisen in its splendour 
and glory to provide a new gospel, a new god, to take 
their place, and I tilled my essay with ingenious argu- 
ments, and liberal quotations from William Morris and 
Ruskin, and rhetorical flights of prophecy. I had not 
given the last flnishing and convincing touches to my ex- 
position of the new gospel when, with my marriage, came 
other work more urgent, and I was spared the humiliation 
of seeing my Palace of Art collapse, like the house built 
on sand, while I still believed in it. In the years that 
followed I got to know most of the galleries and exhibi- 
tions of Europe ; despite my scruples I made a profession 
of writing about art ; and the education tliis meant taught 
me, among other things, the simple truth that art is art, 
and not religion. But I cannot laugh at the old folly 
of my ignorance. The enthusiasm, the mood, out of which 
the article grew, was better, healthier, than the apathy 
that had saved me from being ridiculous because it risked 
nothing. 



PHILADELPHIA AND ART 401 

III 

These years away from home were spent largely in 
the company of artists and were filled with the talk of art; 
what had been marvels to me in Philadelphia became 
the commonplaces of every day. Put I was all the time 
in Italy, or France, or England, and could not realize 
the extent to which, for Philadelphians who had not 
wandered, artists and art were also becoming more and 
more a part of everyday life. I did not see Philadelphia 
in the changing, not until it had changed, and possibly I 
feel the change more than those who lived through it. It 
is not so much in the things done, in actual accomplish- 
ment, that I am conscious of it, as in the new concern for 
art, the new attentions heaped upon it, the new deference 
to it. Art is in the air — ■'' on the town," a subject of 
polite conversation, a topic for the drawing-room. 

AVhen I lirst came out, art had never supplied small 
talk in society, never filled up a gap at a dull dinner or 
reception. We should have been disgracefully behind the 
times if we could not chatter about Christine Xilsson and 
Campanini and the last opera, or Irving and Ellen Terry 
and their interpretation of Shakespeare; if we had not 
kept up with TroUope and George Eliot, and read the 
latest Howells and Henry James, and raved over the 
Rubaiyat. But we might have had the brand-newest 
biographical dictionary of artists at our fingers' ends— 
as we had not — and there would have been no occasion to 

26 



402 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

use our information. Nobody sparkled by sprinkling his 
talk with the names of artists and sculptors, nobody asked 
what was in the last Academy or who had won the gold 
medal in Paris, nobody discussed the psychology or the 
meaning of the picture of the year. I remember think- 
ing I was doing something rather pretentious and pedantic 
when I began to read Ruskin. I remember how a friend 
who was a tireless student of Kiigler and Crowe and 
Cavalcaselle, as a preparation to the journey to Europe 
that might never come off, was looked upon as a sort of 
prodigy — a Philadelphia phenomenon. But to-day I am 
sure there is not the name of an artist, from Cimabue and 
Giotto to Matisse and Picasso, that does not go easily 
round the table at any Philadelphia dinner; not a writer 
on art, from Lionardo to Nordau, who cannot fill up 
awkward pauses at an afternoon crush; not one of the 
learned women of Philadelphia who could not tell you 
where every masterpiece in the world hangs and just what 
her emotions before it should be, who could not play the 
game of attributions as gracefully as the game of bridge, 
who could not dispose of the most abstruse points in art 
as serenely as she settles the simplest squabble in the 
nursery. 

The Academy is no longer abandoned in the wilderness 
of Broad and Cherry Streets; its receptions and private 
views are social functions, its exhibitions are events of 
importance, the best given in Philadelphia and through- 
out the land, its collections are the pride of the wealthy 




UPPER ROOM, STENTON 



PHILADELPHIA AND ART 405 

Philadelpliians wlio contribute to them, its schools are 
stifled with scholarships. 

The other Art Schools have multiplied, not faster, 
however, than the students whose Iei»'ions account for, if 
they do not warrant, the existence not of the Academy 
Schools alone, but of the School of Industrial Art, the 
Drexel Institute, the Woman's School of Design, the 
L^ncle's old little experiment enlarged into a large Public 
Industrial Art School where, I am told, the Founder is 
comfortably forgotten — of more institutes, schools, classes 
than I probably have heard of. 

The Art Galleries have nuiltiplied: there is some reason 
for ^lemorial Hall now that the Wilstach Collection is 
housed there, and the Yellow Buskin, one of the finest 
Whistlers, hangs on its walls, now that the collections of 
decorative art are being added to by JNIrs. John Harrison 
and other Philadelphians who are ambitious for their town 
and its supremacy in all things. Xor does this Philadel- 
j^hia ambition soar to loftier heights than in the project 
for the new Parkway from the City Hall with a new Art 
Gallery — the centre of a sort of LTniversity of Art if I 
can rely upon the plans — to crown the Park end of this 
splendid (partially still on paper) avenue, as the Arc de 
Triomphe crowns the western end of the Avenue of the 
Champs-Elysees. 

The collectors multiply, their aims, purse, field of re- 
search, all expanding; their shyness on the subject sur- 
mounted; Old Masters for whom Europe now weeps mak- 



406 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

ing their triumphant entry into Philadelphia; the highest 
price, that test of the modern patron, paid for a Rem- 
brandt in Philadelphia; the collections of Mr. Johnson 
and Mr. AVidener and Mr. Elkins and Mr. Thomas in 
Philadelphia as well known by the authorities as the 
Borghesi collection in Rome or the Duke of Westminster's 
in London. 

The social life of art grows and can afford the large 
luxurious Club in South Broad Street, artists and their 
friends amply supporting it. And the old Sketch Club, 
once glad of the shelter of a room or so, has blossomed 
forth in a house of its own in the flourishing " Little Street 
of Clubs," with the Woman's Plastic Club close by. 

The artists only, as far as I can see, have not multi- 
plied and grown in proportion. But the artist somehow 
appears to be the last consideration of those who think they 
are encouraging art. Still there are new names for my 
old list: Henry Thouron, Violet Oakley, Maxfield Par- 
rish, now ranked with the decorative painters — and, I 
might just point out in passing, it is to Philadelphia that 
Boston, Harrisburg, and at times New York must send 
for their decorators, whose work I have not seen in place 
to express an opinion on it one way or the other. Cecilia 
Beaux and Adolphe Borie now figure with the portrait 
painters; Waugh and Fromuth with the marine painters, 
who include also Stokes, the chronicler of Arctic splen- 
dors of sea and sky, and Edward Stratton Holloway, the 
making of beautiful books claiming his interest no less 



PHILADELPHIA AND ART 407 

than the sea; Glackens, Thornton Oakley, Elizabeth Ship- 
pen Green, Jessie Wilcox Smith with the illustrators; 
jNIcCarter, Redfield with the group gathered about the 
Academy; (xrafly with the sculptors; Clifford Addams, 
Daniel (iarber with the winners of scholarships. Archi- 
tects have not lagged behind in the race — after the Furness 
period, a Cope and Stewardson period, a Wilson Eyre 
period, to-day a Zantzinger, Borie, IVIedary, Day, Page, 
Trumbauer, and a dozen more periods each progressing 
in the right direction; with young men from the Beaux- 
Arts and young men from the University School, eager 
to tackle the ever-increasing architectural commissions in 
a town growing and re-fashioning itself faster than any 
mushroom upstart of the West, to inaugurate a period of 
their own. 

IV 

I am not a fighter by nature, I set a higher value on 
peace as I grow older, and I look to ending my days in 
Philadelphia. Therefore I chronicle the change; I do not 
criticise it. But a few comments I may permit myself and 
yet hope that Philadelphia will not bear me in return the 
malice I could so ill endin*e. I think the gain to Philadel- 
phia from this new interest has, in many ways, been great. 
If art is the one thing that lives through the ages — art 
whether expressed in words, or paint, or bricks and mortar, 
or the rh}i:hm of sound, — it follows that the pleasure it 
gives — when genuine — is the most enduring. This is a 



408 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

distinct, if perhaps at the moment negative, gain. A more 
visible gain I think comes from the new desire, the new 
determination to care foi- the right thing: a fashion due 
perhaps to the insatiable American craving for " culture," 
and at times guilty of unintelligent excesses, but pleasanter 
in results than the old crazes that filled Philadelphia draw- 
ing-rooms with spinning wheels and cat's tails and ^Morris 
mediaevalism, — if they brought Art Nouveau in their 
train, thank fortune it has left no traces of its passing; a 
fashion more dignified in results than the old standards 
that filled Philadelphia streets with flights of originality, 
and green stone monsters, and the deplorable Philadel- 
phia brand of Gothic and Renaissance, Romanesque and 
Venetian, Tudor and everything except the architecture 
that belongs by right and tradition in Penn's beautiful 
town. 

But interest in art does not create art, and when 
Philadelphia believes in this interest as a creator, Phila- 
delphia falls into a mistake that it has not even the merit 
of having originated. I have watched for many years the 
attempts to make art grow, to force it like a hot-house 
plant. The same thing is going on everywhere. In Eng- 
land, South Kensington for more than half a century 
has had its schools in all parts of the kingdom, the County 
Council has added to them, the City Corporation and the 
City Guilds have followed suit, artists open private classes, 
exhibitions have increased in number until they are a drug 
on the market, art critics flourish, the papers devote 




WYCK 

The doorway from within 



PHILADELPHIA AND ART 411 

columns to their platitudes. And what has England to 
show as the outcome of all this care? Go look at the deco- 
rations in the Royal Exchange and the pictures in the 
Royal Academy, examine the official records and learn 
how great is the yearly output of art teachers in excess of 
schools for them to teach in, and you will have a good 
idea of the return made on the money and time and red 
tape lavished upon the teaching of art. It is no better in 
Paris. Schools and students were never so many, for- 
eigners arrive in such numbers that they are pushing the 
Frenchman out of his own Latin Quarter, American stu- 
dents swagger, play the prince on scholarships, are pre- 
sented with clubs and homes where they can give after- 
noon teas and keep on living in a little America of their 
own. And what comes of it? Were the two Salons, with 
the Salon des Independants and the Salon d'Automne 
thrown in, ever before such a weariness to the flesh? — was 
mediocrity ever before such an invitation to the poseur 
and the crank to pass ofl* manufactured eccentricity as 
genius ? 

It would not be reasonable to expect more of Phila- 
delphia than of London and Paris. I cannot see that finer 
artists have been bred there on the luxury of scholarships 
and schools than on their own efl'orts when they toiled all 
day to be able to study at night, when success was theirs 
only after a hard fight. The Old JNIasters got their train- 
ing as apprentices, not as pampered youths luxuriating 
in fine schools and exhibitions and incomes and every 



412 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

luxury; they were patronized and more splendidly than 
any artists to-day, but not until they had shown reason for 
it, not until it was an honour to patronize them. The new 
system is more comfortable, I admit, but great work does 
not spring from comfort. Philadelphia is wise to set up a 
hiffh standard, but not wise when it makes the wav too 
easy. For art is a stern master. It cares not if the wxak 
fall by the roadside, so long as the strong, unhampered, 
succeed in getting into their own. The best thing that 
has been done at the Academy for many a day is the re- 
ducing of the scholarships from a two, or three, years' 
interval free of responsibility, to a summer's holiday 
among the masterpieces of Europe, which, I am told, is 
all they are now. 



CHAPTER XVI: PHILADELPHIA AT TABLE 

I 

IF interest in the art of eating called for justification, 
I could show that I come by mine legitimately. My 
family took care of that when the sensible ancestor 
who made me an American settled in Accomac, where 
most things worth eating were to be had for the fishing 
or the shooting or the digging, so that Accomac feasted 
while the rest of Virginia still starved, and when my 
Grandfather, in his day, moved to Philadelphia which is 
as well provided as Accomac and more conscientious in 
cultivating its possibilities. It would be sheer disloyalty 
to the family inheritance if I did not like to eat well, just 
as it would be rank hypocrisy to see in my loyalty a virtue. 
Accomac's reputation for good eating has barely got 
beyond the local history book, Accomac, I find, being a 
place you must have belonged to at one time or another, 
to know anything about. But Philadelphia made a repu- 
tation for its high living as soon as the Philadelphian 
emerged from his original cave, or sooner — read Watson 
and every other authority and you will find that before 
he was out of it, even the family cat occupied itself in 
hunting delicacies for the family feast. And right off 
the Philadelphian understood the truth the scientist 
has been centuries in groping after: that if people's 

413 



414 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

food is to do them good, they must take pleasm'e in it. 
The material was his the minute he landed on the spot, 
not the least recommendations of which were its fish 
and game and its convenience as a port where all the 
country did not produce could be brought from countries 
that did — a spot that, half-way between the North and 
the South, assured to Philadelphia one of the best-stocked 
markets in the world, ever the wonder and admiration of 
every visitor to the town. Pleasure in the material, if his- 
tory can be trusted, dates as far back. A wise man once 
suggested the agreeable journeys that could be planned on 
a gastronomical map of France — from the Tripe of Caen 
to the Bouillabaisse of Marseilles, from the Chateau Mar- 
gaux of Bordeaux to the Champagne of Rheims, from the 
Ducks of Rouen to the Truffles of Perigord, and so, from 
one end to the other of that Land of Plenty. I would 
suggest that an agreeable record of Philadelphia might be 
based upon the dinners it has eaten, from the historic 
dinner foraged for by the cat over a couple of centuries 
ago, to the banquet of yesterday in Spruce Street or 
Walnut, at the Bellevue or the Ritz. 

I should like some day to write this history myself, 
when I have more space and time at my disposal. I have 
always been blessed with a healthy appetite, a decent 
sense of discrimination in satisfying it, and also a deep 
interest in the Philosophy of Food ever since I began to 
collect cookery books. The more profoundly I go into the 
subject, the readier I am to believe with Brillat-Savarin 






■vNX 













A .•% 






;> 



Xi 







i'>4fes 








H"^^.'. 







THE PHILADELPHIA DISPENSARY FROM INDEPENDENCE SQUARE 



PHILADELPHIA AT TABLE 417 

that what a man is depends a good deal on what he eats. 
This is why I think tliat if the Phihidelphian is to be 
understood, the study of liini nmst not stop with his 
politics and his literature and his art, but must include his 
marketing and his bill of fare. He has had the wit never 
to doubt the importance of both, and the pride never to 
make light of his genius for living well. 

The early Friends in Philadelphia knew better than to 
pull a long face, burrowing for the snares of the flesh and 
the devil in every necessity of life, like the unfortunate 
Puritans up in Xew England. It was not to lead a 
hermit's existence William Penn invited them to settle 
on the banks of the Delaware, and he and they realized 
that pioneer's work could not be done on hermit's fare. 
They entertained no fanatical disdain for the pleasures 
of the table, no ascetic abhorrence to good food, daintily 
prepared. Brawn and chocolate and venison were Penn's 
tender offering as lover to Hannah Callowhill, olives 
and wine his loving gift as friend to Isaac Norris. For 
equally " acceptable presents " that admirable citizen had 
to thank many besides Penn. James Logan knew that the 
best way to manage your official is to dine him, and in his 
day, and after it, straight on, no public commissioner, and 
indeed no private traveller, could visit Philadelphia and 
not be fed with its banquets and comforted with its 
JVIadeira and Punch, while few could refrain from saying 
so with an eloquence and gratitude that did them honour. 
Benjamin Franklin, keeping up the tradition, was known 

27 



418 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

to feast more excellently than a philosopher ought, and 
his philosophy of food is explained by his admission in a 
letter that he would rather discover a recipe for making 
Parmesan cheese in an Italian town than any ancient in- 
scription. The American Philosophical Society could not 
conduct its investigations without the aid of dinners and 
breakfasts, nor could any other Philadelphia Society or 
Club study, or read, or hunt, or fish, or legislate, or pursue 
its appointed ends, without fine cooking and hard drinking 
— though I hope they were not the inspiration of Thomas 
Jefferson's severe criticism of his fellow Americans who, 
he said, were unable to terminate the most sociable meals 
without transforming themselves into brutes. It was 
impossible for young ladies and grave elders to keep 
descriptions of public banquets and family feasts and 
friendly tea-drinkings out of their letters and diaries: 
one reason of the fascination their letters and diaries have 
for Philadelphians who read them to-day. And alto- 
gether, by the Revolution, to judge from John Adams' 
account of his " sinful feasts " in Philadelphia, and 
General Greene's descri23tion of the luxury of Boston as 
" an infant babe " to the luxury of Philadelphia, and the 
rest of America's opinion of Philadelphia as a place of 
" crucifying expenses," and many more signs of the 
times, the dinners of Philadelphia had become so in- 
separable from any meeting, function, or business, that 
I am tempted to question whether, had they not been eaten, 
the Declaration of Independence could have been signed. 




MORRIS HOUSE, GERMANTOWN 



PHILADELPHIA AT TABLE 421 

But it was signed and who can say, in face of the fact, that 
Philadelphia was any the worse for its feasting? And 
what if it proved a dead weight to John Adams, did Bos- 
ton, did anj' other town do more in the cause of patriotism 
and independence? 

One inevitable feature of the " sinful feasts " was the 
JNIadeira John Adams drank at a great rate, but suffered 
no inconvenience from. I could not dispense with it in 
these old records, such a sober place does it hold in my 
own memories of Philadelphia. The decanter of Madeira 
on my Grandfather's dinner table marked the state occa- 
sion, and I would not have recognized Philadelphia on my 
return had the same decanter not been produced in wel- 
come. It was an assurance that Philadelphia was still 
Philadelphia, though sky-scrapers might break the once 
pleasant monotony of low, red brick houses and motor 
horns resound through the once peaceful streets. 

From the beginning Madeira was one of the things no 
good Philadelphia household could be without — just the 
sound, dignified, old-fashioned wine the Philadelphian 
would be expected to patronize, respectable and upright as 
himself. Orders for it lighten those interminably long 
letters in the Penn-Logan correspondence, so long that all 
the time I was reading them, I kept wondering which of 
the three I ought to pity the most : Penn for what he had 
to endure from his people ; Logan for having to keep him 
posted in his intolerable wrongs; or myself for wading 
through all they both had to say on the subject. As time 



422 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

went on, I do not believe there was an official function at 
which Madeira did not figure. There I always find it — the 
wine of ceremony, the sacrificial wine, without which no 
compact could be sealed, no event solemnized, no pleasure 
enjoyed. It seems to punctuate every step in the career 
of Philadelphians and of Philadelphia, and I thought 
nothing could be more characteristic, when I read the 
Autohiograjjliy of Franklin, than that it should have been 
over the Philadelphia ^ladeira one Governor of Pennsyl- 
vania planned a future for him, and another Governor of 
Pennsylvania later on discoursed provincial affairs with 
him, " most profuse of his solicitations and promises " 
under its pleasant influence. Throughout the old annals 
I am conscious of that decanter of Madeira always at hand, 
the Philadelphian " as free of it as an Apple Tree of 
its Fruit on a Windy Day in the month of July," one old 
visitor to the town records with a pretty fancy for which, 
as like as not, it was responsible. 

And throughout the more modern records, there it is 
again. Even in the old-fashioned Philadelphia boarding- 
house less than a century ago, the men after dinner sat 
over their Madeira. New generations of visitors, like 
the old, drank it and approved, the Madeira that sup- 
ported John Adams at Philadelphia's sinful feasts help- 
ing to steer Thackeray and an endless succession of 
strangers at the gate through Philadelphia's coiu'se of 
suppers and dinners. It amuses me to recall, as an in- 
stance of all it represented to Philadelpliia, that for a 



PHILADELPHIA AT TABLE 423 

couple ot* years at the Convent, though a healthier child 
than I never lived, I ^^'as made by the orders of my Father, 
obeyed by no means imwillingly on my part, to drink a 
glass of JNIadeira, with a biscuit, every morning at eleven. 
And so deep-rooted was its use in the best traditions of 
Philadelpliia respectability, that the irreproachable Phila- 
delphia ladies who wrote cookery books never omitted the 
glass of ^ladeira from the Terrapin, and went so far as to 
quote Scripture and to recommend a little of it for the 
stomach's sake. 

II 

One of these Philadelphia ladies wrote the most fa- 
mous cookery book to this day published in America; a 
fact which pleases me, partly because, with Edward Fitz- 
gerald, I cannot help liking a cookerj^ book, and still more 
because it flatters my pride as a Philadelphian that so 
famous a book should come from Philadelphia. It seems 
superfluous to add that I mean Miss Leslie's Complete 
Cookery. What else could I mean? 

There had been cookery books in America before Miss 
Leslie's. America, with Philadelphia to set the standard, 
could not get on very far without them. If in the hurry 
and flurry of Colonial life, the American did not have the 
leisure to write them, he borrowed them, the speediest way 
to manufactin-e any kind of literature. There is an 
American edition of Mrs. Glasse, with Mrs. Glasse left 
out — the American pirate was nothing if not thorough. 



424 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

There is an American edition of Richard Briggs who was 
not deprived of the credit of his book, though robbed of 
his title. There are American editions I have no doubt of 
many besides which I have only to haunt the old book- 
stalls and second-hand book stores of Philadelphia assidu- 
ously enough to find. But of American cookery books, 
either borrowed or original, before the time of ^liss Leslie, 
I own but the stolen Mrs. Glasse and an insignificant little 
manual issued in New York in 1813, an American adapta- 
tion probably of an English model to which I have not yet 
succeeded in tracing it. 

Nor do I know of any I do not own, and I know as 
much of American cookery books as any of the authori- 
ties, and I do not mind saying so, as I can without the 
shadow of conceit. Vicaire includes only two or three in 
his Bihliographie; Hazlitt, to save trouble, confined him- 
self to English books; Dr. Oxford's interest is frankly in 
the publications of his own country, though, in his first 
bibliography, he mentions a few foreign volumes, and in 
his second he refers to one American piracy, and these are 
the three chief bibliographers of the Kitchen in Europe. 
American authorities do not exist, when I except myself. 
It is true that G. H. Ellwanger made a list of cookery 
books, but he threw them together anyhow, with no attempt 
at classification, and his list scarcely merits the name of 
bibliography. The history of the American cookery book 
is a virgin field, and as such I present it to the innumerable 
American students who are turned out from the Univer- 




THE STATE HOUSE COLONNADE 



PHILADELPHIA AT TABLE 427 

sities, year after year, for the research work that is fre- 
quently of as little use to themselves as to anybody else. 

But many as may be the discoveries in the future, Miss 
Leslie cannot be dethroned nor deprived of her distinction 
as the JNIrs. Glasse of America. Other writers, if there 
were any, were allowed to disappear; should they be 
dragged out of their obscurity now, it would be as biblio- 
graphical curiosities, bibliographical specimens. Miss 
Leslie was never forgotten, she survives to-day, her name 
honoiu'cd, her book cherished. She leapt into fame on its 
publication, and with such ardour was the First Edition 
bought up, with such ardour either reverently preserved 
or diligently consulted that I, the proud possessor of Mrs. 
Glasse in her First Edition " pot folio," of Apicius Coelius, 
Gervase Markham, Scappi, Grimod de la Reyniere, and 
no end of others in their first Editions, cannot as yet boast 
a First Edition of ^liss Leslie. I have tried, my friends 
have tried; the most important book-sellers in the country 
have tried; and in vain, until I begin to think I might 
as well hope for the Elzevir Patissier Fra7ifais as the 1837 
Complete Cookery. It may be hidden on some miexplored 
Philadelphia book shelf, for it was as indispensable in the 
Philadelphia household as the decanter of INIadeira. I ask 
myself if its appreciation in the kitchen, for which it was 
written, is the reason why I have no recollection of it in 
the Eleventh and Spruce Street house, well as I remember 
Lippincotfs on the back parlour table, nor in my Father's 
library, well as I recall his editions of Scott and Dickens, 



428 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

Voltaire and Rousseau, a combination expressive of a 
liberal taste in literature. But never anywhere have I seen 
that elusive First Edition, never anywhere succeeded in 
obtaining an earlier edition than the Fifty-Eighth. The 
date is 1858 — ^think of it! fifty-eight editions in twenty-one 
years! Can our " Best Sellers " surpass that as a record? 
Or can any American writer on cookery after Miss Leslie, 
from Mrs. Sarah Joseph Hale and Jenny June to JMarion 
Harland and the Philadelphia Mrs. Rorer, rank with her 
as a rival to jNIrs. Glasse, as the author of a cookery book 
that has become the rare prize of the collector? 

Ill 

It is so proud an eminence for a quiet Philadelphia 
maiden lady in the Eighteen-Thirties and Forties to have 
reached that I cannot but wish I knew more of Miss Leslie 
personally. From her contemporaries I have learned 
nothing save that she went to tea parties like any ordinary 
Philadeljjhian, that she was interested in the legends and 
traditions of her town, which wasn't like any ordinary 
Philadelphian, and that she condescended to journalism, 
editing The Casket. There is a portrait of her at the 
Academy, Philadelphia decorum so stamped upon her face 
and dress that it makes me more curious than ever to 
know why she was not the mother of children instead of a 
waiter of books. These books explain that she had a 
literary conscience. In her preface to her Domestic 
Economy, which is not an unworthy companion to her 



PHILADELPHIA AT TABLE 429 

Complete Coohery, slie reveals an unfeiiiinine respect for 
style. " 111 this as in her Cookery Book," she writes, a 
dignity expressed in her use of the third person, " she has 
not scrupled when necessary, to sacrifice the sound to the 
sense; repeating the same words when no others could be 
found to express the purport so clearly, and being always 
more anxious to convey the meaning in such terms as could 
not be mistaken than to risk obscuring it by attempts at 
refined phraseology or well-rounded periods." Now and 
then the temptation was too strong and she fell into 
alliteration, writing of " ponderous puddings and curdled 
custards." But this is exceptional. As a rule, in her dry, 
business-like sentences, it would be impossible to suspect 
her of philandering with sound, or concerning herself 
with the pleasure of her readers. 

Her subject is one, happily, that can survive the sacri- 
fice. The book is a monument to Philadelphia cookery. 
She was not so emancipated as to neglect all other kitchens. 
Recipes for Soup a la Julienne and INIulligatawny, for 
Bath Buns and Gooseberry Fools, for Pilaus and Curries, 
are concessions to foreign conventions. Recipes for Oys- 
ters and Shad, for Gumbo and Buckwheat Cakes, for 
]Mint Juleps and Sweet Potatoes, for Pumpkins and INIush, 
show her deference to ideals cultivated by Americans from 
one State or another. But concessions and deferencedo 
not prevent her book — her two books — ^from being un- 
mistakably Philadelphian: — an undefinable something in 
the quality and quantity, a definable something in the 



430 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

dishes and ingredients. I know that in my exile, thousands 
of miles from home, when I open her Complete Cookery, 
certain passages transport me straight back to Philadel- 
phia, to my childhood and my youth, to the second-story 
back-building dining-room and the kitchen with the lilacs 
at the back-yard door. I read of Dried Beef, chipped or 
frizzled in butter and eggs, and, as of old in the Eleventh 
and Spruce Street house, a delicious fragrance, characteris- 
tic of Philadelphia as the sickly smell of the ailanthus, fills 
my nostrils and my appetite is keen again for the eight 
o'clock tea, long since given way to the eight o'clock 
dinner. I turn the pages and come to Reed Birds, roasted 
or baked, and at once I feel the cool of the radiant fall 
evening, and I am at Belmont or Strawberry Mansion 
after the long walk through the park, one of the gay party 
for whom the cloth is laid. Or the mere mention of 
Chicken Salad sets back the clock of the years and drops 
me into the chattering midst of the Philadelphia five 
o'clock reception, in time for the spread that, for senti- 
ment's sake, is dear to me in memory, but that, for diges- 
tion's sake, I hope never to see revived. Or a thrill is in 
the dressing for the salad alone, in the mere dash of mus- 
tard that Philadelphia has the independence to give to its 
Mayonnaise. I am conservative in matters of art. I would 
not often recommend a deviation from French precedent 
which is the most reliable and the finest. But Philadelphia 
may be trusted to deviate, when it permits itself the liberty, 
with discretion and distinction. 




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f^'lr-'^ 



THE SMITH MEMORIAL, WEST FAIRMOUNT PARK 



CHAPTER XVII: PHILADELPHIA 
AT TABLE— CONTINUED 



SO mucli of Philadelphia is in ^Nliss Leslie that her 
silence on one or two matters essentially Phila- 
delphian is the greater disappointment. 
I have said that when I was young it was the busi- 
ness of the man of the house to market and to make 
the Mayonnaise for the dinner's salad, and I have searched 
for the reason in vain. His appropriation of the market- 
ing seems to be comparatively modern. If the chronicles 
are to be trusted, it was the woman's business as late as 
Mrs. Washington's day. But by mine, the man's going to 
market had settled solidly into one of those Philadelphia 
customs taken for granted by Philadelphians simply be- 
cause they were Philadelphia customs. Never in print 
have I seen any reference to this division of family labour 
except in the Philadelphia stories of Thomas A. Janvier 
who, as a Philadelphian, knew that it became well brought 
up Philadelphia men to attend to the marketing and that 
duties becoming to them were above explanation. Janvier 
knew also that only in Philadelphia, probably, could it 
occur to the " master of a feast " to dress the salad, and 
that this was the reason " why a better salad is served at 
certain dinner tables in Philadelphia than at any other 



28 



433 



434 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

dinner tables in the whole world." INIiss Leslie is not 
without honour in her own town and was there reverenced 
by no one as truly as by Janvier, but his reverence for the 
Art of Cookery was more profound and he shared the 
belief of the initiated that in it man surpasses as hitherto, 
I regret to say, he has surpassed in all the arts. 

Janvier himself was the last " master of the feast " it 
was my good fortune to watch preparing the ^Mayonnaise. 
It was a solemn rite in his hands, and the result not un- 
worthy — his salads were delicious, perfect, original, their 
originality, however, never jDushed to open defiance of 
the Philadelphia precedents he respected. One of my 
pleasantest memories of him is of his salad-making at 
his own dinner table in his London rooms, one or two 
friends informally gathered about him, and the summer 
evening so warm that he appeared all in white — a splendid 
presence, for he was an unusually handsome man, of the 
rich, flamboyant type that has gone out of fashion almost 
everywhere except in the South of France. The white 
added, somehow, to the effect of ceremony, and he lingered 
over every stage of the preparation and the mixing, — 
the Philadelphia touch of mustard not omitted, — with due 
s-ravitv and care. How different the salad created with 
this ceremony from the usual makeshift mixed nobody 
knows how or where! 

That the Philadelphia man should have accepted this 
responsibility, explains better than I could how high is 
the Philadelphia standard. I could not understand Miss 




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THE BASIN, OLD WATER-WORKS 



PHILADELPHIA AT TABLE 437 

Leslie's silence on the subject, did I not suspect her of a 
disapproval as complete as her Cookery. She had no new- 
fangled notions on the position of woman, no desire to dis- 
pute man's long-established superiority. If she was will- 
ing to teach women how to become accomplished house- 
wives, it was that they might administer to the comfort 
and satisfy the appetite of their fathers and brothers and 
husbands and sons. The end of woman, according to her 
creed, is to make the home agreeable for man, and it woidd 
save us many of to-day's troubles if we agreed with her. 
No man, since it is to his advantage, will blame her for 
being more orthodox as a woman than as a Philadelphian, 
nor is it at very great cost that I forgive her. I prize her 
book too much from the collector's standpoint, if from no 
other, to resent its sentiment. And my joy in my copy- 
in my Fifty-eighth Edition — is none the less because it was 
presented to me by Janvier who, in a few short stories, 
gave the spirit of the Philadelphia feast as INIiss Leslie, in 
two substantial volumes, collected and classified its 
materials. 

Another thing I do not find in iNIiss Leslie is the Oyster 
Croquette, which she could not have ignored had she once 
eaten it. Therefore I am led to see in it the product of a 
generation nearer my own. In my memories of child- 
hood it is inseparable from my Grandmother's eight 
o'clock tea on evenings when the family were invited in 
state — in my memories of youth inseparable from every 
afternoon or evening party at which I feasted fearlessly 



438 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

and well — and it figured at many a Sunday high-tea, that 
exquisite feast which, by its very name, refuses to let itself 
be confounded with its coarser coiniterpart known to the 
English as a meat- tea. From these facts I conclude, 
though I have no other data to rely upon, that the Oyster 
Croquette must have been not simply the masterpiece, 
but the creation of Augustine, for the Oyster Croquette 
which the well-brought-up Philadelphian then ate at mo- 
ments of rejoicing was always of his cooking. 

II 

Augustine — the explanation is superfluous for Phila- 
delphians of my age — was a coloured man with the genius 
of his race for cookery and probably a drop or more of the 
white blood that developed in him also the genius for 
organization, so that he was a leader among caterers, as 
well as a master among cooks. It is worth noting that 
the demand for cooks in Philadelphia being great, the 
greatest cooks in Amei-ica never failed to supply it : worth 
noting also that the Philadelphia housewife, being thus 
well supplied, had not begun when I was young to amuse 
herself with the chafing-dish as she does now. For many 
years, Augustine's name and creations were the chief dis- 
tinction of every Philadelphia feast. To have entertained 
without his assistance would have been as serious a crime 
as to have omitted Terrapin — in season — and Ice-cream 
from the Philadel])hia menu; as daring as to have gone for 
chocolates anywhere save to Penas' or for smilax anywhere 



PHILADELPHIA AT TABLE 439 

save to Peniiock's, and this sort of daring in Pliiladelphia 
would have heen dej^lored not as harmless originality, but 
as eccentricity in the worst possible taste. Thanks to 
Augustine, Philadelphia became celebrated in America for 
its Oyster Croquettes and Terrapin and Broiled Oysters — 
what a work of genius this, with the sauce of his invention! 
— as Bresse is in France for its Chickens, oi- York in En^- 
land for its Hams. 

So much I know about him, and no more— but his name 
should go down in history with those of Vatel and Careme 
and GoufFe: an artist if ever there was one! Because he 
did not conmiit suicide like Vatel — his oysters w^ere never 
late — because he did not write encyclopedias of cookery 
like Careme and GoufFe, his name and fame are in danger 
of perishing unless every Philadelphian among my con- 
temporaries hastens to lay a laurel leaf upon his grave. 
I fear nothing as yet has been done to preserve his memory. 
His name survives on the simple front of a South Fif- 
teenth Street house, where I saw it and rejoiced when 
I was last at home and, in compliment to him, went inside 
and ate my lunch in the demure light of a highly respecta- 
ble dining-room in the society of a dozen or more highly 
respectable Philadelphians seated at little tables. I could 
not quarrel with my lunch — it was admirably cooked and 
served — but it was an everyday lunch, not the occasional 
feast — the Augustine of old did not cook the ordinary meal 
and the Fifteenth Street house is too modest to be ac- 
cepted as the one and only monument to his memory. 



440 OUR PHILx\DELPHIA 

The Oyster Croquette could not have sprung up in a 
day and triumphed were Philadelphia as hide-bound with 
convention as it is supposed to be. Philadelphia is con- 
servative in matters of cookery when conservatism means 
clinging to its great traditions ; it is liberal when liberality 
means adapting to its own delightful ends the new idea or 
the new masterpiece. It never ceased to be sure of its 
materials nor of their variety, the Philadelj^hia market 
half way between North and South continuing to provide 
what is best in both: the meats of the finest — the fattest 
mutton he ever saw, Cobbett, though an Englishman, 
found in Philadelphia — its fruits and vegetables of the 
most various, its butter, good Darlington butter, famed 
from one end of the land to the other. And in the prepara- 
tion of its materials, for the sake of eating better, Phila- 
delphians never have hesitated to take their good where 
they have found it. Dishes we prize as the most essentially 
Philadel23hian have sometimes the shortest pedigree. Why, 
the Ice-cream that is now one of Philadelphia's most re- 
spected institutions, came so recently that people we, of 
my generation, knew could remember its coming. On 
my return to Philadelphia, with the advantage the per- 
spective absence gives, I could appreciate more clearly 
than if I had stayed at home how well Philadelphia eats 
and how nobly it has maintained its old ideals, how nobly 
accepted new ones. It has not wavered in the practice 
of eating well and taking pleasure in the eating — the 
reputation of giving good dinners is, as in my youth, the 




GIRARD STREET 



PHILADELPHIA AT TABLE 443 

most hiolily prized. To (juote Janvier: '' The person who 
uehieves eelebrity of tliis sort in Phihidelphia is not unlike 
the seraph who attains eminence in the heavenly choir." 
But I am conscious of a latitude that would not have been 
allowed before in the choice of a place to eat them in, and 
amazed at the number of new dislies. 

Ill 

The back-building dining-room was the one scene I 
knew for tlie feast. If I were a man I could tell a differ- 
ent tale. As a woman I used to hear — all Philadelphia 
women used to hear — of colossal masculine banquets at the 
Philadelphia Club and the LTnion League, of revels at the 
Clover Club, of fastidious feasts at more esoteric clubs — 
the State in Schuylkill, the Fish-House Club, and what 
were the others? — clubs carrying on the great Colonial 
traditions, perpetuating the old Colonial Punch as zeal- 
ously as the Vestal Virgins watched their sacred fire, 
observing mystic practices in the Kitchen, the Philadelphia 
man himself, it was said, putting on the cook's apron, pre- 
siding over grills and saucepans, and serving up dishes of 
such exquisite quality as it has not entered into the mind 
of mere woman to conceive or to execute: wnth the true 
delicacy of the gourmet choosing rather to consecrate his 
talents to the one perfect dish than to squander them upon 
many, shrinking as an artist must from the plebeian 
" groaning-board "of the gluttonous display. To stories 
of these marvels I listened again and again, but my only 



444 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

knowledge of them is based on hearsay. I would as soon 
have expected to be admitted to Mount Athos or to the 
old Chartreuse as to banquets and feasts and revels so 
purely masculine; to ask for the vote would have seemed 
less ambitious than to pray for admission. What folly 
then it would be for me to pretend to describe them ! What 
presumption to affect a personal acquaintance I have not 
and could not have! Into what pitfalls of ignorance 
would I stumble ! It is for the Philadelphia man some day 
to write this particular chapter in the history of Philadel- 
phia at Table. 

As to the Philadelphia woman at the period of which 
I speak, she had no Clubs. It was not supposed to be 
good form for her to feast outside of the back-building 
dining-room. She might relieve her hunger with Oys- 
ters in Jones's dingy little shop, or a plate of Ice-cream 
in Sautter's sombre saloon; or, with a boating part}^ in 
spring or summer, she might go for dinner or supper to 
one of the restaurants in the Park. But for more serious 
entertaining, home, or her friends' home, was the place. 
Not that she was, as the fragile, fainting Angelina type 
once admired, too ethereal to think of food and drink. 
She could order and eat a luncheon, or a dinner, with the 
best, though she did not do the marketing or make the 
Mayonnaise. But she would rather have gone without 
food than defy the unwritten Philadelphia law. 

Now Philadelphia has changed all that. The wise re- 
main faithful to the back-building dining-room and, within 




THE UNION LEA(.UE, EKOM BROAD AND CHESTNUT STREETS 



PHILADELPHIA AT TA15LE 447 

its grave and tranquil walls, on its substantial leather- 
covered cliairs, Stuart's Washington looking down from 
his place above the mantelpiece, they continue to feast with 
a luxury LucuUus might have envied. Fashion, however, 
drives the less wise to more frivolous scenes. I never 
thought to see the day when I should, in Philadelphia, 
lunch at a large, well-appointed, luxurious woman's club, 
when I should be invited to feast at the Union League — 
my lunch there was one of the most extraordinary of all 
my extraordinary experiences on my return to Philadel- 
phia — when the cloth for my dinner would be laid in a big, 
gay, noisy, crowded Country Club — and yet the miracle 
had been worked in my absence and I saw not the day, but 
the many days when these things happened. Not only this. 
In Clubs and Country Clubs a degree of privacy is still 
assin-ed. But it is a degree too much, to judge from the 
way PhiladeljDhia rushes to lunch, and dine, and drink the 
tea it does not w^ant at five o'clock, in hotels and restau- 
rants: our little secluded oyster saloons exchanged for 
dazzling lunch counters, the Spruce and Pine and Walnut 
Street house that could not be except in Philadelphia 
deserted for the Ritz and the Bellevue that might be in 
New York or Chicago, Paris or London, Vienna or Rome. 
The old fashion was to celebrate the feast in cloistered 
seclusion, to let none intrude who was not bidden to share 
it. Now the fashion is to cry out and summon the mob 
and the multitude to gaze upon Philadelphia feasting. I 
know that this is in a measiu'e the result of a change that is 



448 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

not peculiar to Philadelphia alone. All the world to-day, 
wherever you go, dines in public — the modern Dives must 
always dine where his Lazarus cannot possibly mistake the 
gate. But I could not have believed that Philadelphia 
would come to it — that Philadelphia would step out from 
the sanctuary into the market-place and proclaim to the 
passer-by the luxury he had once so scrupulously kept 
to himself. 

IV 
Nor is the feast quite what it was, though this is not 
because it has lost, but rather because it has gained. I 
trembled on my return lest the old gods be fallen. ^ly 
first visit after long years away was one of a few hours 
only. I ran over from New York to lunch with old friends. 
Thej-e was a horrid moment of bewilderment when I 
stepped from the Pennsylvania Station into a street where 
I ought to have been at home and was not, and this made 
me dread that at the luncheon the change would be more 
overwhelming. Certain things belong to, are a part of, 
certain places that can never be the same without them. 
I met a Frenchman the other day in London, who had not 
been there for ten years, and who was in despair because 
at no hotel or restaurant could he find a gooseberry or an 
apple tart. They were not dishes of which he was warmly 
enamoured ; no Frenchman could be ; but a London shorn 
of gooseberry and apple tarts was not the London he had 
known. The dread of the same disillusionment was in my 
heart as I drew near my luncheon, more serious in my case 



PHILADELPHIA AT TABLE 449 

because the things I did not want to lose were too good to 
lose. But my dread was wasted. Broad Street might 
have changed, but not the Chicken Salad with the Philadel- 
phia dash of mustard in the Mayonnaise, not the Cro- 
quettes though Augustine had gone, not the Ice-cream 
rising before me in the splendid pyramid of my child- 
hood with the solid base of the CoiFee Ice-cream I had 
never gone to Sautter's without ordering. And I knew 
that hope need not be abandoned when I was assured that, 
though Sautter's have opened a big new place on Chest- 
nut Street, wliere a long menu disputes the honours with 
their one old masterpiece, it is to the gloomy store in the 
retirement of Broad and Locust that the Philadelphia 
woman, who gives a dinner, sends for her Ice-cream. 

These things were imaltered — they are unalterable. 
All the old friends reappeared at the breakfasts, lunch- 
eons and dinners that followed in the course of the longer 
visit when, not the Fatted Calf, but the Fatted Shad, 
Soft- Shell Crab, Fried Oyster, Squab — how the name 
mystified my friend, -George Steevens, though he had but 
to open an old English cookery book in my collection to 
know that in England, before he was born, a Squab was a 
young Pigeon — ^Broiled Chicken, Cinnamon Bun, little 
round Cakes with white icing on top, were prepared for 
the prodigal. But there were other dishes, other com- 
binations new to me : Grape Fruit had come in during my 
absence, though long enough ago to have reached Eng- 
land in the meanwhile; also the fashion of serving Shad and 

29 



450 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

Asparagus together, the dernier cri of the Philadelphia 
epicure, though — may I admit it now as I have not dared 
to before? — a combination in which I thought two delicate 
flavours were sacrificed, one to the other. And there were 
amazing combinations in the Salads, daring, strange, un- 
Philadelphian, calling for the French Dressing for which 
my Philadelphia had small use. I so little liked the new 
sign of the new Sundae at the new popular lunch-counter 
and druggist's that, with true Philadelphia prejudice, I 
never sampled it. And there were other innovations I 
would need to write a cookery book to exhaust — sometimes 
successful, sometimes not, but with no violation of the 
canons of the art in which Philadelphia has ever excelled. 
In every experiment, every novelty, the motive, if not the 
result, was sound. 

For this reason I have no fear for the future of Phila- 
delphia cookery, if only it has the courage not to succumb 
unreservedly to cold storage. The changes may be many, 
but Philadelphia knows how to sift them, retaining only 
those that should be retained, for beneath them all is the 
changelessness that is the foundation of art. 



CHAPTER XVIII: PHILADELPHIA 
AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY 

I 

I CONFESS to a good deal of emotion as the train 
slowed up in the Pennsylvania Station, and I think 
I had a right to it. It is not eveiy day one comes 
home after a quarter of a century's absence, and at 
the first glance everything was so bewilderingly home- 
like. Not that I had not had my misgivings as the train 
neared Philadelphia. From the car windows I had seen 
my old Convent at Torresdale transformed beyond rec- 
ognition, many new stations with new names by the way, 
rows and rows of houses where I remembered fields, Phila- 
delphia grown almost as big as London to get into, a 
new, strange, unbelievable sky-line to the town, the bridges 
multiplied across the Schuylkill — change after change 
where I should have liked to find everything, every house, 
field, tree, blade of grass even, just as I had left it. But 
what change there might be in the station kept itself, for 
the moment anyway, discreetly out of sight. For all the 
difference I saw, I might have been starting on the journey 
that had lasted over a quarter of a century instead of re- 
turning from it. 

This made the shock the greater when, just outside in 
Market Street, I was met by a company of mounted 

451 



452 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

policemen. It is true they were there to welcome not me, 
but the President of the United States who was due by the 
next train, and were supported by the City Troop, as 
indispensable a part of my Philadelphia as the sky over 
my head and the bricks under my feet ; true also that, well- 
uniformed, well-mounted, well-groomed as they were, I 
felt they would be a credit to any town. But the shock 
was to find them there at all. Philadelphia in my day could 
not have run, or would not have wanted to run, to any- 
thing so officially imposing; that it could and did now was 
a warning there was no mistaking. Whatever Philadel- 
phia might have developed, or deteriorated, into, it was 
not any longer the Philadelphia I had known and loved. 

It was the same sort of warning all the way after that. 
Wherever I went, wherever I turned, I stumbled upon an 
equally impossible jumble of the familiar and the un- 
familiar. At times, I positively ached with the joy of 
finding places so exactly as I remembered them that I 
caught myself saying, just here "this " happened, or 
"that," as I and my Youth met ourselves; at others I 
could have cried for the absurdity, the tragedy, of finding 
everything so different that never in a foreign land had 
I seemed more hopelessly a foreigner. 

I did not have to go farther than my hotel for a re- 
minder that Philadelphia, to oblige me, had not stood 
altogether still during my quarter of a century's absence, 
but had been, and was, busy refashioning itself into some- 
thing ^preposterously new. From one of my high windows 



•-^- V«*r- •J^ 



**v 



"^"^k. \ 



■it. 







r\ 




BROAD STREET STATION 



AFTER A QI AHTER OF A CENTURY 455 

I might look down to the Phihidelphia Library and the 
Episcopal Academy, — those two bulwarks of Philadel- 
phia respectability — and beyond, stretching peacefully 
away to tlie peaceful curves of the Delaware, to a wide 
plain of flat red roofs and chimneys, broken by the green 
lines of the trees that follow the straight course of 
Philadelphia's streets and by the small green spaces of 
the trees that shade Philadelphia's back-yards: level and 
lines and spaces I knew as well as a lesson learnt by heart. 
But, from the midst of this red plahi of roofs, huge high 
buildings, like towers, that I did not know, sprang up into 
the blue air, increasing in number as my eye wandered 
northward until, from the other window, I saw them 
gathered into one great, amazing, splendid group with 
William Penn, in full-skirted coat and broad-brimmed hat, 
springing still higher above them. 

When I went down into the streets, I might walk for a 
minute or two between rows of the beloved old-fashioned 
red brick houses, with their white marble steps and their 
white shutters below and green above, and then, just as 
exultantly I began to believe them changeless as the 
Pyramids and the Sphinx, I woidd come with a jar upon 
a Gothic gable, an absurd turret, a Renaissance doorway, 
a fac^'ade disfigured by a hideous array of fire escapes, a 
sham Colonial house, or some other upstart that dated 
merely from j^esterday or the day before. And here and 
there a sky-scraper of an apartment house swaggered in 
the midst of the little " homes " that were Philadelphia's 



456 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

pride — the last new one, to my dismay, rearing its count- 
less stories above the once inviolate enclosure of Ritten- 
house Square. 

When I went shopping in Chestnut Street my heart 
might rejoice at the sight of some of the well remembered 
names — Dreka, Darlington, Bailey, Caldwell, as indis- 
pensable in my memory as that of Penn himself — but it 
sank as quickly in the vain search for the many more that 
have disappeared, or indeed, for the whole topsy-turvy 
order of things that could open the big new department 
stores into ^Market Street and make it the rival of Chestnut 
as a shopping centre, or that could send other stores up to 
where stores had never ventured in my day: stores in 
Walnut Street as high as Eighteenth, a milliner's in 
Locust Street almost under the shadow of St. Mark's, a 
stock-broker at the corner of Fifteenth and Walnut, 
Hughes and Miiller — I need tell no Philadelphian who 
Hughes and Miiller are even if they have unkindly made 
two firms of the old one — within a stone's throw of Dr. 
Weir Mitchell's house; when I saw that I felt that sacri- 
lege could go no further. 

For sentiment's sake, I might eat my plate of ice- 
cream at the old little marble-topped table in the old 
Locust Street gloom at Sautter's, or buy cake at Dexter's 
at the old corner in Spruce Street, but Mrs. Burns with her 
ice-cream, Jones with his fried oysters, had vanished, gone 
away in the Ewigkeit as irrevocably as Hans Breitmann's 
Barty or the snows of yester-year. And Wyeth's and 




WANAMAKER'S 



AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY 459 

Hubbell's masqueraded under other names, and Shinn, 
from whom we used to buy our medicines, was dead, and the 
new firm sold cigars with their ice-cream sodas, and my 
Philadelphia was stuffed with saw-dust. 

Not a theatre was as I had left it, new ones I had 
never heard of drawing the people who used to crowd the 
Chestnut, which has rung down its curtain on the last act 
of its last play even as I write ; the Arch, given over now, 
alas! to the "Movies" and the "Movies" threaten the 
end of the drama not onh^ at the Arch but at all theatres 
forever ; well-patronized houses flourishing in North Broad 
Street; the staid Academy of Music thrown into the 
shadow by its giddy prosperous upstart of a rival up-town. 

Vanished were old landmarks for which I confidently 
looked — the United States Mint from Chestnut Street; 
from Broad and Walnut the old yellow Dundas House 
with the garden and the magnolia for whose blossoming 
I had once eagerly watched with the coming of spring; 
from Thirteenth and Locust the old Paterson House, 
turned nito the new, imposing, very much criticised build- 
ing of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; from 
Eleventh and Spruce, that other garden overlooked by the 
windows of the house my Grandfather built and lived in, as 
my Father did after him, and, to me more cruel, the house 
itself passed into other hands, grown shabby with time, and 
the sign " For Sale " hanging on its neglected walls. 
Change, change, change — that was what I had come home 
for! 



460 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

II 

I am not sure, however, that I had not the worst shock 
of all when I wandered from the old home, further down 
Spruce Street, below the beautiful Eighteenth Century 
Hospital, dishonoured now and shut in on the Spruce 
Street side by I hardly know what in the way of new 
wings and wards. As I had left it, this lower part of 
Spruce and Pine and the neighbouring streets, had 
changed less perhaps than any other part of the town — has 
changed less to-day in mere bricks and mortar. It had 
preserved the appropriate background for its inheritance 
of history and traditions. Numerous Colonial houses re- 
mained and upon them those of later date were modelled. 
It had kept also the serenity and repose of the Quaker 
City's early days, the character, dignity, charm. Many 
old Philadelphia families had never moved away. It was 
clean as a little Dutch town with nothing to interrupt the 
quiet but the gentle jingling of the occasional leisurely 
horse-car. 

And what did I find it? — A slum, captured by the 
Russian Jew, the old houses dirty, down-at-the-heel ; the 
once spotless marble steps unwashed, the white shutters 
hanging loose; the decorative old iron hinges and catches 
and insurance plaques or badges rusting, and nobody can 
say how much of the old woodwork inside burned for 
kindling; Yiddish signs in the windows, with here a Jewish 
Maternity Home, and there a Jewish newspaper office ; at 







ST. PETERS CHURCHYARD 



AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY 463 

every door, almost every window, and in groups in the 
street, men, women and children with Oriental faces, here 
and there a man actually in his caftan, bearded, with the 
little curls in front of his ears, and a woman with a 
handkerchief over her head, and all chattering in Yiddish 
and slatternly and dirty as I remembered them in South- 
Eastern Europe, from Carlsbad and Prague to those re- 
mote villages of Transylvania where dirt was the sign by 
which I always knew when the Jewish quarter was reached. 
A few patriotic Philadelphians have recently returned hop- 
ing to stem the current, and their houses shine with cleanli- 
ness. In Fourth Street the dignified Randolph House, 
which the family never deserted, seems to protest against 
the wholesale surrender to the foreign invasion. In Pine 
Street, St. Peter's, with its green graveyard, has survived 
untarnished the surrounding desecration. But I could 
only wonder how long the church and these few houses will 
be able to withstand the triumphing alien, and I abandoned 
hope when, at the very gate of St. Peter's, a woman with a 
handkerchief tied over her head stopped me to ask the way 
to '' Zweit und Pine" 

III 

I know that the same thing is going on in almost all 
the older parts of the United States, and the new parts 
too — I know that some small New England towns can 
support their two and three Polish newspapers, that 
New York swarms with people who talk any and every 



464 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

language under the sun except English, and can boast, if it 
is a thing to boast of, more Italians than Rome, more Jews 
than Jerusalem; that San Francisco has its Chinatown, 
that the ^liddle West abounds in German and Swedish 
settlements — in a word, I know that everywhere throughout 
the country, the native American is retreating before this 
invasion of the alien. But it is with a certain difference in 
Philadelphia. Have I not said that one of the absurdities 
of my native town — I can afford to call them absurdities 
because I love them — is that for the Philadelphian who 
looks upon himself as the real Philadelphian, Philadelphia 
lies between the Delaware and the Schuylkill, and is 
bounded on the north by Market Street, on the south by 
Lombard ; that in the ancient rhyming list of its streets he 
recognizes only the liue: 

" Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce, and Pine " '<' 
Now, when I left home this narrow section was 
threatening to grow too narrow and it was with some 
difficulty the Philadelphian kept within it. LTp till then, 
however, it was in no danger except from his own increas- 
ing numbers. The tragedy is that the Russian Jew should 
have descended upon just this section, should now, not so 
much dispute it with him, as oust him from it — the Russian 
Jew, a Jew" by religion but not by race, who has been 
found impossible in every country on the Continent of 
Europe into which he has drifted, so impossible when that 
country is Holland that the Jews who have been there for 
centuries collect among themselves the money to send 




:"M.*:r « 




< / / 



CITY HALL FROM THE SCHUYLKILL 



AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY 467 

him post haste on to England and jjoor America, for even 
the Dutch Jew cannot stand the Russian Jew — and, from 
what I have heard, neither can the decent Pennsylvania 
Jew who has been with us almost from the beginning. Other 
aliens have been more modest and set up their slums where 
they interfere less with Philadelphia tradition. I cannot 
understand, and nobody has been able to explain to me, 
why the Russian Jew was allowed to push his way in. But 
the indolent never see the thin end of the wedge, and there 
are philanthropists whose philanthropy for the people 
they do not know increases in direct proportion to the harm 
it does to those they do know. I was told more than once 
to consider what Philadelphia was doing for the Russian 
Jew, to remember that he has paid America the compli- 
ment of accepting it as the Promised Land, that his race 
in America has produced Mary Antin, and to see for my- 
self what good Americans were being made of his chil- 
dren. But though Philadelphia may one day blossom like 
the rose with JMary Antins, though there might have been 
an incipient patriot in every one of the small Russian 
Jews I met being taken in batches across Independence 
Square to Independence Hall to imbibe patriotism at the 
fount, I could not help considering rather what the Rus- 
sian Jew is just now doing for Philadelphia. For it is as 
plain as a pipe stem to anybody with eyes to see that the 
Philadelphians to whom Philadelphia originally belonged 
are being pushed by the Russian Jew out of the only part 
of it they care to live in. 



468 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

I wondered at first why so many people had fled to the 
country, why so many signs " For Sale " or " For Rent " 
were to be seen about Spruce and Pine and Walnut 
Streets. Various reasons were given me: — with the Law 
Courts now in the centre of the town and the new Stock 
Exchange at Broad and Walnut, and stores every- 
where, nobody could live in town; the noise of the 
trolleys is unbearable; the dirt of the city is unhealthy; 
soft coal has made Philadelphia grimier than London; 
the motor has destroyed distance; — excellent reasons, 
all of them. But it was not until I discovered the Rus- 
sian Jew that I understood the most important. It is 
the Russian Jew who, with an army of aliens at his back 
— thousands upon thousands of Italians, Slavs, Lithuan- 
ians, a fresh emigration of negroes from the South, and 
statistics alone can say how many other varieties — is push- 
ing and pushing Philadelphians out of the town — first up 
Spruce Street, nearer and nearer to the Schuylkill, then 
across the Schuylkill into the suburbs, eventually to be 
swept from the suburbs into the country, until who can 
say where there will be any room for them at all? With 
the Russian Jew's genius for adapting himself to Ameri- 
can institutions, I could fancy him taking possession of, 
and adding indefinitely to, the little two-story houses that 
already stretch in well-nigh endless rows to the West and 
the North, Germantown and West Philadelphia built 
over beyond recognition. I remember when, one day in a 
trolley, I had gone for miles and miles between these rows 







CHESTNUT STREET BRIDGE 



AFTER A QI ARTER OF A CENTURY 471 

^eac'h little house with the same front yard, the same 
porch, the same awning, the same rocking-chairs — 1 had a 
horrible waking nightmare in which I saw them multiply- 
ing — as the alien himself multiplied beyond the most 
ardent dreams of ]Mr. Roosevelt, — and creeping out 
further and further, across the city limits, across the State, 
across the ^Middle West, across the prairies, across the 
Rockies, across the Sierras, until at last they joined East 
to West in one unbroken line — one great, unbroken, un- 
lovely monument to the enterprise of the new American, 
and the philanthropy of the old: while only the Russian 
Jew at the door of the State House, like Macaulay's New 
Zealander under the shadow of St. Paul's, remained to 
muse and moralize on the havoc he had wrought. 

This may seem a trifle fantastic, but I should find it 
hard to give an idea of how impossibly fantastic the pre- 
vailing presence of the alien in Philadelphia appeared to 
me. To be sure, we had our aliens a quarter of a century 
ago. But they were mostly Irish, Germans, Swedes. The 
Italian at his fruit-stall was as yet rather the picturesque 
exception, and I can remember how, not very long before 
I left home, the whole town went to stare at the first im- 
portation of Russian Jews, dumped down under I have 
forgotten what shelter, as if they were curiosities or freaks 
from Barnum's. But now the aliens are mostly Latins, 
Slavs, Orientals who do not fit so unobtrusively into 
our American scheme of things, and who come from the 
lowest classes in their own countries, so ignorant and de- 



47^2 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

graded most of them that, what with their increasing 
numbers and our new negro population from the South, 
there are people in Pennsylvania who are trying to intro- 
duce an educational test at the polls — America having 
learned the evil of universal suifrage just as England is 
coquetting with it. 

IV 

The rest of Philadelphia— the rest of America, for that 
matter — may be accustomed to this new emigration to my 
town as well as to all parts of the country. But I had not 
seen the latter-day alien coming in by every steamer, and 
gradually, almost imperceptibly, establishing himself. 
The advantage, or disadvantage, of staying away from 
home so long is that, on returning, one gets the net result 
of the change the days and the years bring with them. 
Those who stay at home are broken in to the change in its 
initial stages and can accept the result as a matter of 
course. I could not. To be honest, I did not like it. I 
did not like to find Philadelphia a foreign town. 

I did not like to find Streets where the name on almost 
every store is Italian. I did not like to find the new types 
of negro, like savages straight from the heart of Africa 
some of them looked, who are disputing South Street and 
Lombard Street and that disgraceful bit of Locust Street 
with the decent, old-fashioned, self-respecting Philadel- 
phia darkies. I did not like to find the people with 
foreign manners — for instance, to have my hand kissed 



AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY 473 

for a tip in tlie hotel by a Lithuanian chambermaid, though 
1 should add that in a month she had grown American 
enough to accejjt the same tip stoically with a bare " Thank 
You." 1 did not like to find the foreigner forcing his way 
not only into the Philadelphian's houses, the Philadel- 
phian's schools, the Philadelphian's professions — profes- 
sions that have been looked upon as the sacred right of cer- 
tain Philadelphia families for almost a couple of centuries. 
1 have heard all about his virtues, nobody need remind 
me of them; I know that he is carrying off everything 
at the University so that rich Jews begin to think they 
should in retia'n make it a gift or bequest, as no rich Jew 
has yet, I believe. I know that the young Philadelphian 
must give up his sports and his gaieties if he can hope to 
compete with the young Russian Jew w^ho never allows 
himself any recreation on the road to success — and per- 
haps this won't do the young Philadelphian any harm. I 
know that if the Russian Jew^ keeps on studying law, the 
Philadelphia lawyer will be before long as extinct as the 
dodo — a probability that if it wakes up the Philadelphia 
lawyer may have its uses. All this, and much besides, I 
know^ — also, incidentally, I might add the fact that the 
Russian Jew% who is not unintelligent, has mastered in a 
very short time the possibilities of arson and bankruptcy 
as investments. But if there were no other side to his 
virtues — and of course there is that other side too — I should 
not like to think of the new Philadelphian that is to come 
out of this incredible mixture of Russian Jews and count- 



474 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

less other aliens as little like us in character and tradition. 

The new Philadelphian may be a finer creature far 
than in my hopes for him, finer far than the old Philadel- 
phian I have known — but then he will not be that old Phila- 
delphian whom I do not want to lose and whom it would 
be a pity to lose in a country for which, ever since Penn 
pointed the way to the constitution of the United States, he 
has probably accomplished more than any other citizen. 

Personally, I might as well say that I do not believe 
he will be a finer creature. It seems to me that he is doing 
away with the old American idea of levelling up and is 
bent on the levelling down process that is going on all over 
Europe. And so foreign is he making us, that I would 
not think J. very far wrong in declaring himself the only 
real American left, if only he would include me with him. 



CHAPTER XIX: PHILADELPHIA AFTER 
A QUARTER OF A CENTURY— CONTINUED 

1 

IT was not only the change that oppressed nie those 
first days of my return. As bewildering, as dis- 
couraging, were the signs everywhere of the horrible 
haste with which it has been brought about: a haste for- 
eign to the Philadelphia habit. But the aliens pouring 
into Philadelphia have increased its population at such a 
prodigious rate that it has been obliged to grow too 
prodigiously fast to meet or to adapt itself to the new 
conditions without the speed that does not belong to it. 

I had left it a big, prosperous, industrial town — Bald- 
win's, Cramp's, Kensington and Germantown mills all in 
full swing — but it carried off its bigness, prosperity, and 
industry with its old demure and restful airs of a country 
town. The old-fashioned, hard-working, Philadelphia 
business man could still dine at four o'clock and spend the 
rest of the afternoon looking out of the window for the 
people who rarely passed and the things that never hap- 
pened — nobody would be free to dine at four now-a-days, 
nobody would have the leisure to sit at any hour looking 
out of the window, except perhaps the Philadelphia club- 
man who clings to that amiable pastime, as he does, so 
far successfully, to his Club house, threatened on every 

477 



478 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

side as it is by the advance of the sky-scraper. The old- 
fashioned busy Philadelphia crowds, as I remember them, 
could still take their time in the streets, so that I remember, 
too, my friend, George Steevens' astonishment because a 
passer-by he thanked for information could linger to say 
" You are very welcome." The old-fashioned Philadel- 
phia business, going on at a pace that only New York and 
Chicago could beat, was still accomplished with so little 
fuss that the rest of America laughed at Philadelphia for 
its slowness and sleepiness, and told those old time-worn 
stories that have passed into folk-lore. It was just this 
that gave Philadelphia such a distinct character of its 
own — that it could be laughed at for slowness and sleepi- 
ness by the other towns, and all the while be sleepy and 
slow to such good purpose as to make itself into one of the 
most prosperous and influential in the country: to be able 
to work at the American pace and yet preserve its dignity 
and sedateness. 

But the old stories have lost what little point they had, 
Philadelphia does not look slow and sleepy any longer. 
Things have changed, indeed, when a modern traveller like 
Mr. Arnold Bennett can speak of " spacious gaiety " in 
connection with Philadelphia — ^with its spacious dulness 
the earlier traveller was more apt to be impressed. At last, 
however, it has given up its country-town airs for the 
airs of the big town it is — ^given up the calmness that was 
its chief characteristic for the hurry-flurry of the ordinary 
American town. And there is scarcely a Philadelphian 








-^^S^^^'/^'^M^ V^ljr.i:'!if 



THE MARKET STREET ELEVATED AT THE DELAWARE END 



AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY 481 

who regrets it, that is the saddest part of it — scarcely a 
Philadelphian who does not rejoice that Philadelphia is 
getting to be like New York. 

I think, of all the innovations, this was the one that 
distressed me most, though I could understand the diffi- 
culty of calm in the face of the nuiltitude of new housing 
and traffic problems it has had to tackle, at a rate and with 
a speed that the Philadelphian, left to himself, would never 
have imposed upon it. Somehow, it has had to keep on 
putting up those rows of little two-story houses in suffi- 
cient numbers to shelter the too rapidly increasing popula- 
tion if it is to maintain its reputation as the City of 
Homes; somehow, it has had to provide subways, and 
elevateds, and new subiu'ban lines with no level crossings, 
and new central Stations and Terminals, and big trolley 
cars out of all proportion to Philadelphia's narrow streets, 
and taxis too dear for any but the millionaire to drive in, if 
the too-rapidly increasing crowds are to be got to work and 
back again; somehow, new bridges have had to cross the 
Schuylkill, new streets have had to be laid out, so many 
new things have had to be begun and done in the too- 
rapidly growing town, that there is small chance and less 
time for it to take them calmly or, alas! to keep itself 
clean and tidy. 

II 

In my memory Philadelphia was a model of cleanli- 
ness under a clean sky, free of the smoke that the use of 
soft coal has brought with it. Every Saturday every ser- 

31 



482 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

vant girl — " maid," Philadelphia calls her now — turned 
out with mops and buckets and hose, for such a washing up 
of the front for a week that, until the next Saturday, 
Philadelphia could not look dirty if it tried. But I do not 
believe that a legion of servant girls, with all the mops, 
buckets, and hose in the world, could ever wash Philadel- 
phia clean again, to such depths of dirt has it fallen. It 
could not have been more of a disgrace to its citizens when 
Franklin deplored the shocking condition of its streets, 
especially in wet weather, or when Washington had to 
wade through mud to get to the theatre where he found 
his recreation. It has become actually the Filthydelphia 
somebody once called it in jest. Not even in the little 
Spanish and Italian towns whose dirt the American de- 
plores, have I seen such streets — all rivers and pools and 
lakes when it rains, ankle-dee23 in dust when it is dry, 
papers flying loose, corners choked with dirt, tins of ashes 
and garbage standing at the gutter side all day long — 
even London, that I used to think the dirtiest of dirty 
towns, knows how to order its garbage better than that. 
We Americans are supposed to be long-suffering, to en- 
dure almost anything until the crisis comes. But I thought 
that crisis had long since come in the Philadelphia streets. 
Everybody agreed with me, and I was assured that a 
corrupt government having been got out and a reform 
government got in, already there was tremendous talk of 
schemes for garbage — bags to be hauled off full of gar- 




- ^"v V\\ WWrls^. 



THE RAILROAD BRIDGES AT FALLS OF SCHUYLKILL 



AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY 485 

bage, dust-tight on the way, and hauled back empty, old 
paper to be bought up by the city so that no thrifty citizen 
would throw a scrap of paper into the street — and as 
tremendous talk of experiments in garbage, ten patriotic 
citizens promising to contribute one thousand dollars each 
to make them. I was assured also that the reform Mayor 
has done his best and struggled valiantly against the evil, 
but unfortunately it is not he alone who can vote the money 
for a wholesale spring-cleaning. It occurred to me that, in 
the meanwhile, we might be better off if we returned with 
much less expense, to the hogs that were " the best of 
scavengers " when William Cobbett visited Philadelphia. 
Or, at no more than the cost of a ticket to New York, the 
reformers might at least learn how to keep garbage tins 
off the front steps of inoffensive, tax-paying citizens at 
five o'clock in the afternoon when they ask their friends to 
drink tea in that English fashion which is as novel in my 
Philadelphia as the difficulty with the garbage. 

My own opinion was that Philadelphia had lost its 
head over the magnitude of the task before it. In no other 
way could I account for the recklessness with which old 
streets were torn up for blocks and repaired by inches; 
new streets built and horrible stagnant pools left on their 
outskirts — the suburbs quite as bad in this respect, so bad 
that I understand associations of citizens are formed to 
do what the authorities don't seem able to; boulevards 
planned and held up when half finished, a monumental 



486 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

entrance designed to the most beautiful Park in the world 
and, on its either side, silly little M-ooden pergolas set up to 
try the effect, by the dethroned government 1 believe, and, 
though nobody, from one end of the town to the other, 
approves, neither the time nor the money is found to pull 
them down again — neither the time nor the money foimd 
for anything but dirt and untidiness. 

Ill 

The people, their manners, their life, — everything 
seemed to me to have been caught in this mad whirlwind 
of change and haste. The crowds in the street were not 
the same, had forgotten the meaning of repose and leisure- 
liness; had at last given in to the American habit of 
leaving everything until the last moment and then rushing 
when there was no occasion for rush, and pretending to 
hustle so that not one man or woman I met could have 
spared a second to say " Your are welcome " for any- 
body's " Thank you," or, for that matter, to provide the 
information for anybody's thanks; — indeed, these crowds 
seemed to me to have mastered their new role with such 
thoroughness that to-day the visitor from abroad will carry 
away the same idea of Philadelphia as Arnold Bennett, 
who, during liis sojourn there, never ceased to marvel at its 
liveliness. 

And the croAvds have migrated from the old haunts — 
every sign of life now gone from Third Street and round 
about the Stock Exchange, where nobody now is ever in 







THE PARKWAY PERGOLAS 



AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY 489 

a hurry — carts and cars going at snail's pace, the whole 
place looking as if time did not count — the old town busi- 
ness quarter deserted for JNIarket Street and Broad Street 
round the City Hall. 

And the crowds do not get about in the same way — 
no slow, leisurely ride in the horse-car to a Depot in the 
wilds of Frankford, or at Ninth and Green, on the way 
to the suburbs, but a leap on a trolley, or a rush through 
thronged streets to the Terminal at Twelfth and jNIarket, 
to the Station at Broad and Market. And it was another 
sign of how Philadelphia had " moved " since the old days 
when, in place of the old horse-car, which I could rely upon 
to go in a straight line from one end of the long street to 
the other, I took the new trolley and it twisted and turned 
with me until the exception was to arrive just where I 
expected to, or, if I only stayed in it long enough, not to 
be landed in some remote country town where I had no 
intention of going. I have been told the story of the stay- 
at-home Philadelphian as puzzled as I, who was promised 
by a motorman, as uncertain as she where he was going, 
that at least he could give her a " nice ride through a 
handsome part of the town." Worse still, the trolley did 
not stop at the corners where the car used to stop so that I, 
a native Philadelphian, had to be told where to wait for it 
by an interloper with a foreign accent. Nor was it crowded 
at the same hours as the car used to be, so that going out to 
dinner in a Walnut Street trolley I could sit comfortably 
and not be obliged to hang on to a strap, with everybody 



4JH) OUR PHILADELPHIA 

who got in or out helping to rub the freshness from my best 
evening gown, which would have been my fate in the old 
days. 

And the crowds were not managed in the old way — the 
ordinary policeman used to do his best to keep out of 
sight, and here was the mounted policeman prancing about 
everywhere, and, at congested corners, adding to the con- 
fusion by filling up what little space the overgrown trolleys 
left in the narrow streets. I am not sure that it was not 
this mounted policeman — unless it was the coloured police- 
men and the coloured postmen — I had most difficulty in 
getting accustomed to. I came upon him every day, oi- 
almost every hoiu', with something of a new shock. Can 
this be really I, I woidd say to myself when I saw him in 
his splendour, can this be really Philadelphia? 

IV 

The difference I deplored was not confined to the 
crowds I did not know; it was no less marked in the people 
I did know, in their standards and outlook, in the wav 
they lived. It is hard to say what struck me most, though 
nothing more obviously the first few days than that flight 
to the suburbs which had left such visible proofs as those 
signs " For Rent " and " For Sale " everywhere in the 
streets where I was most at home — a flight necessitated 
perhaps by the inroads of the alien, but only made possible 
by the annihilation of space due to the motor-car. 

Once, when a Philadelphian set up a carriage, it was. 







lARKET STREKT ^^•KST OF THE SCHUYLKILL 



AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY 493 

the announcement to Philadelphia that he had earned the 
fifty thousand dollars which fulfilled his ideal of a fortune. 
In my day Fairman Rogers' four-in-hand was the limit, 
and but few Philadelphians had the money and the reck- 
lessness to rival him. Now the Philadelphian does not 
have to earn anything at all before he sets up his motor- 
car, and it is the announcement of nothing except that he 
is bound to keep in the swim. Our children begin where 
we leave off, as one of my contemporaries said to me. 
Everybody has a motor-car. Everybody who can has one 
in London, I know, and there also the signs " To Let " 
and " For Sale " in such regions as Kensington and Bays- 
water have for some time back explained to me the way it 
has turned London life upside down. But in Philadelphia 
not merely everybody who can, but everybody who can't 
has one, and the Philadelphian would not do without it, if 
he had to mortgage his house as its price. I remember 
how incredulous I was, one of my first Sunday evenings 
at home, when I was dining with friends in the crowded- 
to-sufFocation dining-room at the Bala Country Club and 
was given as an excuse for being rushed from my untasted 
coffee to catch an inconsiderately early last train, that ours 
was probably the only dinner party in the room without a 
car to take us back to town. But from that evening on I 
had no chance for incredulity, my own movements begin- 
ning to revolve round the motor-car. If I was asked to 
dinner and lunch at a distance to which nobody would 
have thought of dragging me by train in the old days, a 



494 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

motor was sent to whirl me out in no time at all. If I went 
into a far suburb for an afternoon visit, instead of coming 
soberly back to town on my return ticket, I would take a 
short cut by flying over half the near country, often in the 
car of people I had never seen before, as the most con- 
venient route to the hotel. All Philadelphia life is regu- 
lated by the motor-car. It makes a ball or a tea or a dinner 
ten miles away as near as one just round the corner was in 
my time, and so half the gaiety is transferred to the 
suburbs and the suburban country, and, to my surprise, I 
found girls still going to dances at midsummer. 

And the motor has made club life for women indis- 
pensable. The woman who comes up to town in her car 
must have a Club, and there is the Acorn Club in Walnut 
Street, The New Century, and the College and Civic 
Clubs, jointly housed at Thirteenth and Spruce, and 
more clubs in other streets, probably, which it was not 
my privilege to be invited to; all, to judge by the Acorn, 
with luxurious drawing- and dining- and smoking- and 
dressing- and bed-rooms, and women coming and going 
as if they had lived in clubs all their lives, when a 
short quarter of a century before there had not been one 
for them to see the inside of. And for men and women 
both, the car has brought within their reach those amazing 
Country Clubs that have sprung up in my absence. I had 
read of Country Clubs in American novels and short 
stories, I had seen them on the stage in American plays, 
but I had never paused to think of them as realities in 



AFTER A QI AliTER OF A ( ENTURY 49,5 

Philadelphia until 1 was actually taken to the Bala and 
Huntington Valle}- Clubs, and until 1 ate their admirable 
dinners — at Bala, with the crowds and in the light and to 
the music that would have made me feel I was in a London 
restaurant, had it not been for the inevitable cocktail — 
and until I saw with my own eyes the luxurious houses so 
comfortably and correctly appointed — even to brass bed- 
room candlesticks on a table in the second-story hall, just 
as in an old-fashioned English inn, though as far as 1 could 
make out there was excellent electric light everywhere — 
until I also saw with my own eyes the trim lawns, and 
gardens, and the wide view over the delicate American 
landscape, and women in the tennis courts, and the men 
bringing out their ponies for polo, and the players dotted 
over the golf coin*se. 

And whether the Country Clubs have created the 
sport or the sport has created the Country Clubs, I cannot 
say, but in the increased attention to sport I was con- 
fronted with another difference as startling. Philadel- 
phia, I know, has always been given to sport. It hunted 
and raced and fished before time and conscience allowed 
most of the other Colonists in the North the chance to 
amuse themselves out-of-doors, or indoors either, poor 
things! And the old sports, barring the least civilized 
like bull-baiting and cock-fighting, were kept up, and are 
kept up, and had their Clubhouses, which, in some cases, 
have survived. But, in my time, these sports had been 
limited to the few who had country houses in the right dis- 



496 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

tricts or the leisure for the gentlemanly pursuit of foxes 
and fishes, and their clubs were primitive compared to the 
palatial Country Clubs, whose luxury women now share 
with men. If you were in the hunting or fishing set, 
you heard all about it; but if you were not, you heard 
little enough. But you did not have to be in any set 
to keep up with the great Philadelphia game of cricket, 
which was popular, exclusive as the players in their 
team might be — all Philadelphia that did not play scrupu- 
lously going on the proper occasions to the Germantown 
Cricket Ground to watch all Philadelphia that did. 
The one alternative as popular was the pastime of row- 
ing, the exclusiveness here in the rowing men's choice 
among the Clubs with the little boating clubhouses on 
the Schuylkill where boats could be stowed. And now? 
The cricket goes on, as gentlemanly and correct a 
pastime as ever. And the boating goes on, but with a 
delightful exclusive old Colonial house, for one Club at 
least, hidden in thickets of the Park where the stranger 
might pass within a stone's throw and never discover it, 
but where the boating party can dine with a privacy and a 
sumptuousness undreamed of at Belmont, where boating 
parties dined in my young days. And, in addition, time 
has been prodigal with golf and tennis and polo: women, 
who had begun tennis in my time, now beginning golf, 
games which, I might as well admit, I have no use for 
and can therefore say little about. And I am told that 
the University foot-ball matches are among the most 




m^'i Wi 










MANHEIM CRICKET GROUND 



AFTER A QrAHTER OF A ( ENTrUV 4<)!) 

important and lavishly patronized social functions of the 
year. .And in town is the h\g Kacquets Club, in a fine 
new building, bio- enough to shelter any number of sports 
besides. And tlie Xatatorium, in movinir from the un- 
pretentious j)rennses in South Broad Street, where it has 
left its old buihlin(>" and name, to the marble palace 
that was once (xcorge W. Childs's — Oh, the sacrilege! 
the house where his emperors and princes and lords and 
authors were entertained, — has converted the swimming 
lesson into the luxury of sport. And all told, so many, 
and so exhaustive, and so universal are the provisions for 
sport that I might have believed the Philadelphian had 
nothing in the world to do, save to invent amusements to 
help him through his empty hours. 

And, apparently, it is to provide for the same empty 
hours that those elaborate lunch places have nmltiplied on 
Chestnut Street, some delightful where you feast as only 
Philadelphia can, some horrible where you sit on high 
stools at counters and fight for your food; that little quiet 
discreet tea-places have sprung up in side streets; that 
gilded restaurants, boasting they reproduce the last Lon- 
don fads and fashions, have succeeded the old no restau- 
rant at all; that hotels as big and strident as if they had 
strayed off Fifth Avenue increase in number year by 
year, culminating in the Adelphia, the latest giant, which 
I have not seen ; that the old poky hotels of my day have 
branched out in roof gardens where on hot summer even- 
ings you can sit up among the sky-sera ])ers, a near neigh- 



500 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

hour to William Penn on his tower, and get whatever air 
stirs over the red-hot furnace of Philadelphia ; that a huge 
new hotel has appeared up Broad Street where it seems the 
PhiladeljDhian sometimes goes with the feeling of ad- 
venture with which he once descended upon Logan Square. 
Even business hours are broken into ; the lunch of a dozen 
oysters or a sandwich snatched up anywhere has gone out 
of fashion; the chop, in the Philadelphia imitation of a 
London chop-house that seemed luxurious in my Father's 
day, has become far too simple ; and disaster was predicted 
to me for the Stock Exchange by a pessimistic member 
who knew that, from the new building that has followed 
the Courts to the centre of the town, brokers will be run- 
ning over to lunch at the Bellevue and to incapacitate 
themselves more or less for the rest of the day, and busi- 
ness will go on drifting, as it has begun to, to New York 
and will all be done by telephone. And as if the feasting 
were not enough of a f)astime, everywhere lunches, teas 
and dinners are served to the sound of music, so that dis- 
traction and diversion may be counted upon without the 
effort to talk for them. When I was young, the best 
Philadelphia could do in the way of combining music and 
eating — or principally drinking — ^was at the Maennerchor 
Garden at Ninth and Green, where a pretzel might be had 
with a glass of beer, or a sherry cobbler, or a mint julep — 
" high-balls " had not been heard of — and the Philadelphia 
girl who went, though it was under the irreproachable 
charge of her brother, could feel that she was doing 




c::^::^ 



DOCK STREET AND THE EXCHANGE 



AFTER A QIARTKR OF A ( F^T^R^ .508 

something- vciy sliocking and c'()ni[)r()Miisin«>-. Hut in the 
new Fliiladelphia, it is music whenever the Phihidelphian 
eats or drinks in puhlic, whieli seems to be next to always. 
It may be said that these are harmless inno\ ations, part 
of the change in town life as lived in any other town as 
big. But the marvel to me was their conquest of Phila- 
delphia, the town that used to pride itself on not being like 
other towns, and there they exaggerated themselves in my 
eyes into nothing short of revolntion. The craving foj- 
novelty — that was at the root of it all : of the restlessness, 
the willingness to do what the old-fashioned Philadelphian 
wonld rather have been seen dead than caught doing, 
of the deliberate break with tradition. Nothing now can 
be left peacefully as it was. I felt the foundations of 
the world crumble when I heard tliat the Dancing Class 
has taken new quarters over in Horticultural Hall and the 
Assembly in the Bellevue, that Philadelphia consents to 
go up Broad Street for its opera, quieting its conscience 
by the compromise of going in carriages and motors and 
never on foot. There surely was the end of the old 
Philadelphia, the real Philadelphia. And it made matters 
no better to be assured that so rapidly does Philadelphia 
move with the times that the Philadelphian who stays away 
from home, or who is in mourning, for a year or so, finds on 
coming back, or out of retirement, that Philadelphia so- 
ciety has been as completely transformed in the mean- 
while as Philadelphia streets. Xor did it make matters 
better to discover the different prices that different 



504 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

standards have brought in their train. I could see the new 
pace at which life in public is set, I heard much of the 
new pace set for it in private — servants' wages prohibitive 
according to old ways of thinking, provisions risen to a 
scale beyond belief, every-day existence as dear as in Lon- 
don^ — in Philadelphia, as elsewhere, people threatened with 
ruin from, not the high cost of living, but the cost of high 
living. 

V 
And the change is not simply in the outward panoply, 
in the parade of life, it is in the point of view, in the new 
attitude toward life — a change that impressed itself upon 
me in a thousand and one ways. I have already referred to 
my astonishment at finding Philadelphia occupying itself 
with art and literature. But really there is nothing with 
which it does not occupy itself. Universal knowledge has 
come into fashion and it makes me tired just to think of 
the struggle to keep up to it. Once the Philadelphian 
thought he knew everything that was necessary to know 
if he could tell you who every other Philadelphian's 
grandfather was. But now he, or I should say she — for 
it is the women who rule when it comes to fashion — is not 
content unless she knows everything, or thinks she does, 
from the first chapter in Genesis to the latest novelty on 
the Boulevards, the latest club gossip in Pall ^lall. And 
how she can talk about it! I have made so many confes- 
sions in these pages that it will do no harm to add one 
more to their number, and to own my discomfiture when, 



AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY 505 

on finding niyself one of a group of Philadelpliiu women, 
I have been stunned into silence, in my ignorance re- 
duced to shame and confusion by their encyclopedic, 
Baedeker-jMurray information and their volubility in im- 
parting it. It is wonderful to know so much, but, as the 
philosopher says, what a comfort, to be sure, a dull person 
may be at times. 

On the whole, it was the new interest in politics that 
most astonished me. That just when Philadelphia has 
plunged into incredible frivolity, it should develop an 
interest in problems it calmly shirked in its days of 
sobriety — that is astounding if you will. When I left 
home, politics were still beneath the active interest of the 
Philadelphian — still something to steer clear from, to keep 
one's hands clean of. A man who would rather live on 
the public than do an honest day's work, was my Father's 
definition of the politician. I remember what a crank we 
all thouglit one of my Brother's friends who amused him- 
self by being elected to the Common Council. It was not 
at all good form — who of self-respect could so far forget 
himself as to become part, however humble, of the ma- 
chine, a hail-fellow-well-met among the Bosses and liable 
to be greeted as Bill or Tom or Jim by the postman on his 
rounds or the policeman at the corner. Better far let the 
city be abominably governed and the tax-payers outra- 
geously robbed, than to submit to such indignities. The 
Philadelphian who realized what he owed to himself and 
his position was superior to politics. But he is not any 



506 Ol R PHILADELPHIA 

longer. 1 found him up to his eyes in politics — taking the 
responsibility of municipal reform, waging war against 
state corruption, running meetings for Roosevelt and 
Progress at tlie last Presidential election. And not only 
this. The women are sharing his labours — the women 
who of old hardly knew the meaning of politics, might 
have been puzzled even to know how to spell the un- 
familiar word — they too are busy with civic reform, 
and turn a watchful but unavailing eye on the garbage, 
and run settlements in the slums, and qualify as police- 
men, and demand the vote — parade for it, hold public 
meetings for it, hob-nob with coloured women for it, 
run after the discredited English militant for it, — and talk 
politics on any and every occasion. There were days when 
I heard nothing but politics — politics at lunch, politics at 
tea, politics at dinner — think of it! politics at a Philadel- 
phia dinner party, politics over the Soft Shell Crabs and 
the Shad and the Broiled Chicken and the Ice-cream from 
Sautter's and the Madeira! It is better and wiser and 
more imjn-oving, no doubt, than the old vapid talk — but 
then the old vapid talk was part of my Philadelphia, and 
my Philadelphia was m hat I wanted to come back to. 



^1 







% 










THK LOfOMOTIVK YARD, \Yp:ST PHILADKLPHIA 



CHAPTER XX: PHILADELPHIA AETER A 
QUARTER OE A CENTURY- CONTINUED 



OF course I resented all the changes and, equally of 
I course, it was unreasonable that I should. 1 had 
not stood stock still for a quarter of a century, 
why should I expect Philadelphia to? 

And little by little, as I got my breath again after my 
first indignant surprise, as I pulled myself together after 
my first series of shocks, I began to understand that the 
wonder was that anything should be left, and to see that 
Philadelphia has held on to enough of its character and 
beauty to impress the stranger, anyway, with the fine 
serenity that I missed at every turn. Philadelphia does 
not " bristle," Henry James wrote of it a very few years 
ago, by which he meant that it does not change, is incapable 
of changing, though to me it was, in this sense, so " brist- 
ling " that I tingled all over with the pricks. But, then, 
I knew what Philadelphia had been. That was why I was 
impressed first with the things that had changed, why, also, 
my pleasure was the keener in my later discovery of the 
things that had not. 

I can laugh now at myself for my joy in all sorts of 
dear, absurd trifles simply because of their homely proof 
that the new Philadelphia had saved some relics of the old. 
What they stood for in my eyes gave value to the little 

509 



510 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

iced Cakes of my childhood; to the frequent street parade, 
glorified as it was beyond recognition by the new presence 
of the mounted police; to the City Troop, gorgeous and 
splendid as of old, and as of old turning out to decorate 
every public ceremony; to the nice old-fashioned " ma'am," 
unheard in England except, I believe, at court; to all the 
town, including my hotel, getting ready for the summer 
with matting and gauze and grey Holland. Old associa- 
tions, old emotions, were stirred by the fragrance of the 
Cinnamon Bun that is never so fragrant out of Philadel- 
phia, and one of the crudest disappointments of my re- 
turn was not to be able to devour it with the untrammelled 
appetite of youth when it was offered me in an interval 
between the Soft-Shell Crab and Ice-cream of a Philadel- 
phia lunch and the Planked Shad and Broiled Chicken of 
a Philadelphia dinner. The row of heads at the Philadel- 
phia Club windows, so embarrassing to me in my youth, 
borrowed beauty from association. I was thrilled by the 
decanter of Sherry or ^ladeira on the dinner table, where 
I had not seen it served in solitary grandeur since I had 
last dined in Philadelphia. The old rough kindliness of the 
people — ^when they were not aliens — in the streets, in the 
stores, in the trolleys, went to my heart. And in larger 
ways, too, the place filled me with pride for its constancy : 
for the steady development of all that made it great from 
the beginning — its schools, its charities, its hospitals, its 
libraries, its galleries; above all, for retaining what it 
could of its dignified reticence in keeping its private affairs 




THK (IIR.VRD TRIST COMrANY 



AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY 513 

to itself. It may live more in publie than it did, but it still 
does not shriek all its seerets from the house-top. It does 
not thrust all its wealth down every man's throat. It still 
hides many of its luxurious private palaees behind modest 
brick fronts. It may have broken out in gaudy hotels and 
restaurants, but Friends still continue to go their peace- 
ful way completely apart in their spacious houses and 
pleasant gardens. Nor would any other town be so shy 
in acknowledging to itself, and boasting to others of, its 
beaut3\ 

II 
Philadelphia has always been over-modest as to its 
personal appearance, — always on the surface, indifferent 
to flattery. Nobody would suspect it of ever having heard 
that to a philosopher like Voltaire it was, without his seeing 
it, one of the most beautiful cities in the universe, that a 
matter-of-fact traveller like William Cobbett thought it a 
fine city from the minute he knew it, that all the old travel- 
writers had a compliment for it, and all the new travellers 
as well, down to Li Hung Chang, who described it felici- 
tously as " one of the most smiling of cities " — the " Place 
of a Million Smiles." It was not because it had ceased to 
be beautiful that it assumed this indifference. As I recall 
it in my youth, it was beautiful with the beauty Philadel- 
phians searched Europe for, while they were busy destroy- 
ing it at home — the beauty that life in England has helped 
me to appreciate as I never did before, for it has given me 
a standard I had not when I knew only Philadelphia. 

33 



5U OUR PHILADELPHIA 

Judged by this standard, I found Philadelphia in its 
old parts more beautiful than I remembered it. In a street 
like Clinton, which has escaped the wholesale destruc- 
tion, or in a block here and there in other streets less 
fortunate, I felt as I never had before the austere loveli- 
ness of their red brick and white marble and pleasant 
green shade. As never before I realized the Eighteenth- 
Century perfection of the old State House and Carpenter's 
Hall. I know of no English building of the same date 
that has the dignity, the harmonious proportions, the re- 
strained ornament of the State House, — none with so 
noble a background of stately rooms for those stately 
figures who were the makers of history in Philadelphia. 
And the old churches came as a new revelation. I ques- 
tioned if I ever could have thought an English Cathedral 
in its close lovelier than red brick St. Peter's in its walled 
graveyard on a spring day, with the green in its first 
freshness and the great wide-spreading trees throwing 
soft shadows over the grassy spaces and the grey crum- 
bling gravestones. The pleasure it gave me positively hurt 
when — after walking in the filth of Front Street, where 
the old houses are going to rack and ruin and where a Jew- 
in his praying shawl at the door of a small, shabby syna- 
gogue seemed the explanation of the filth — I came upon 
the little green garden of a graveyard round the Old 
Swedes' Church, sweet and still and fragrant in the May 
sunshine, though the windows of a factory looked down 
upon it to one side, and out in front, on the railroad tracks, 




TWELFTH STREET MEETING HOUSE 






AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY 517 

huge heavy freight cars rattled and rumbled and slu-ieked 
by, and beyond them rose the steam stacks of steamers 
from Antwerp and Liverpool that unload at its door the 
hordes of aliens who not only degrade, but " impoverish " 
Philadelphia, as the Irish porter in my hotel said to me. 
And what pleasure again, after the walk full of memories 
along Front and Second Streets, with the familiar odours 
and Philadelphia here quiet as of yore, to come upon 
Christ Church a part of the street like any French Cathe- 
dral and not in its own little green, but with a greater 
architectural pretension to make up for it, and with a 
gravestone near the sanctuary to testify that John Penn, 
one at least of the Penn family, lies buried in Philadelphia. 
And what greater pleasure in the old Meeting Houses — 
why had I not known, in youth as in age, their tranquil 
loveliness? — ^What rej^ose there, down Arch Street, in that 
small simple brick building, with its small simple green, 
one bed of tulips at the door, shut off from the noise and 
confusion and dirt and double trolley lines of Arch Street 
by the old high brick wall ; and no less in that equally small 
and simple brick building in South Twelfth Street, an old 
oasis, or resting place, in a new wilderness of sky-scrapers. 
With these churches and meeting-houses standing, can 
Philadelphians deplore the ugliness of their town? 

And the old Eighteenth-Century houses? Would I 
find them as beautiful? I asked myself. Would they sur- 
vive as triumphantly the test of my travelled years and 



518 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

more observant eyes? How foolish the question, how un- 
necessary the doubt! oMore beautiful all of them, because 
my eyes were better trained to appreciate their archi- 
tectural merit; more peaceful all of them, with the feeling 
of peace so intense I wondered whether it came of the 
Colonial architecture or of associations with it. 

Germantown may be built up beyond recognition, its 
Lanes, many of them, turned into Streets for no reason 
the average man can see, but some of the big old estates, 
are still green and untouched as if miles away, and 
the old houses are more guarded than ever from change. 
One by one, I returned to them : — Stenton restored, but as 
yet so judicially that Logan would to-day feel at home in 
its halls and rooms, on its stairway, outside by the dove- 
cote and the wistaria-covered walls, — at home in the garden 
full of tulips and daisies, and old familiar Philadelphia 
roses and Johnny- jump-ups, enclosed by hedges, every 
care taken to plant in it afresh just the blossoms he loved. 
But what would he have said to the factories opposite? To 
the rows of little two-story houses creeping nearer and 
nearer? And the Chew House — could the veterans of the 
Revolution return to it, as the veterans of the Civil War 
return every year to Gettysburg, how well they would 
know their way in the garden, how well, in the wide- 
pillared hall with the old portraits on the white wall, and 
in the rooms with their Eighteenth-Century panelling and 
cornices and fire-places, and in the broad hall upstairs 







X^ 



WYCK 



aftp:r a quarter of a century 521 

could they follow the iiioveiiieiits of the enemy that lost for 
them the Battle of Cxermaiitowii ^ And Wyck — white, 
cloistered, vine-laden, with fragrant garden and shade- 
giving trees! And the Johnson House, and the Wistar 
House, and the Morris House. And how many other old 
houses beyond Germantown! Solitude, and Laurel Hill, 
and Arnold's Mansion in the Park, Bartram's at Gray's 
Ferry. 

I thought first I would not put Bartram's to the test, 
no matter how bravely the others came out of it — Bart- 
ram's, associated with the romance of work and the dawn 
of my new life. But how glad I am that I thought twice 
and went back to it! For I found it beautiful as ever, 
though I could reach it by trolley, and though it was un- 
recognizably spick and span in the little orchard, and 
under the labelled trees, and by the old house and the old 
stables, and in the garden where gardeners were at work 
among the red roses. But the disorder has not been quite 
done away with in the wilderness below the garden, and 
there was the bench by the river, and there the outlook up 
and down — ^had so many chinmeys belched forth smoke 
and had the smoke been as black on the opposite bank, up 
the river, in the old days? Certainly there had not been so 
many ghosts — not one of those that now looked at me with 
reproachful eyes, asking me what I had done with the 
years, for which such ambitious plans had been made on 
that very spot ages and ages ago? 



52^1 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

III 

Philadelphia is not responsible for the ghosts ; they are 
my affair; but it has made itself responsible for the beauty, 
not only at Bartram's but at as many other of the old 
places as it has been able to lay claims upon, converting- 
them into what the French would call historic monuments. 
And Philadelphia, with the help of Colonial Dames, and 
an Automobile Club, and those societies and individuals 
who have learned at last to love the Philadelphia monu- 
ments though still indifferent to the town, has not been too 
soon in prescribing the desperate remedies their desperate 
case demands. In the new care of these old places, as well 
as in the new devotion to the old names and the old 
families, in the new keenness for historic meetings and 
commemorations, in the new local lectures on local sub- 
jects and traditions, in the very recent restoration of Con- 
gress Hall, in all this new native civic patriotism I seemed 
to see Philadelphia's desperate, if unconscious, struggle 
against the modern invader of the town's ancient beauty 
and traditions. The grown-up aliens who can be per- 
suaded, as I am told they can be, to come and listen to 
papers on their own section of the town, whether it be 
Southwark, or Manayunk, or Frankford, or Society Hill, 
or the Northern Liberties, will probably in the end look 
up the old places and their history for themselves, just 
as the little aliens will who, in the schools, are given prizes 
for essays on local history : — offer anything, even a school 




THE MASSED SKY-SCRAPKRS ABOVE THE HOISETOPS 



AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY 525 

prize, to a Russian Jew, and lie will labour for it, in this 
case working indirectly for patriotism. 

But 1 am not sure that the greatest good the Society 
of Colonial Dames is doing is not in emphasizing the value 
of the past to those who date back to it. It has helped 
one group of Philadelphians to realize that there are other 
people in their town no less old as Philadelphians and 
more important in the history of Philadelphia, what is 
called society luckily not having taken possession of the 
Colonial Dames in Philadelphia as in New York. If all 
who date back see in the age of their families their pass- 
port into the aristocracy of Philadelphia and therefore 
of America, they may join together as a formidable force 
against the advance of the formidable alien. Mr. Arnold 
Bennett was amused to discover that every Bostonian 
came over in the jNIayflower, but he does not understand 
the necessity for the native to hold on like grim death to 
the family tree — pigmy of a tree as it must seem in Eu- 
rope — if America is to remain American. ]My one fear is 
lest this zeal, new to me, is being overdone, for I fancy 
I see an ill-concealed threat of a new reaction, this time 
against it. What else does the Philadelphian's toying with 
the cause of the " loyalists " during tlie Revolution and 
his belated espousal of it mean, unless perhaps the childish 
Anglomania which fashion has imposed upon Philadel- 
phia? People are capable of anything for the sake of 
fashion. The ugliest blot on the history of Philadelphia 
is its running after the British when they were in posses- 



526 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

sion of the town that winter we ought to try to forget 
instead of commemorating its feasts — that winter when 
Philadelphia danced and Washington and his troops 
starved. Now Philadelphia threatens another blot as ugly 
by upholding the citizens who would have kept the 
British there altogether. However, this is as yet only 
a threat, Philadelphians are too preoccupied in their 
struggle for survival. 

IV 

Not only the new patriotism, but the new architecture 
is Colonial. For long after Colonial days Philadelphia 
kei^t to red brick and white facings in town, to grey stone 
and white porches in Germantown, often losing the old 
dignity and fine proportions, but preserving the unity, the 
harmony of Penn's original scheme, and the repose that is 
the inevitable result of unity. But there were many terri- 
ble breaks before and during my time — breaks that gave 
us the Public Buildings and Memorial Hall and many of 
the big banks and insurance offices down town, and a long 
list of regrettable mistakes; — breaks that burdened us 
with the brown stone period fortunately never much in 
favour, and the Furness period which I could wish had 
been less in favour so much too lavish was its gift of un- 
desirable originality, and the awful green stone period of 
which a church here and a big mansion there and sub- 
stantial buildings out at the University, too substantial to 
be pulled down for many a day, rise, a solid reproach to 






>i^i 



1« 



'^ 'y, '^V \ . 



!:. -Cj-r?? 



SUNSET. PHILADELPHIA FROM ACROSS THE DELAWARE 



AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY 529 

us for our far straying from i-igiiteousness; breaks that 
courted and won tlie admiration of Philadelphia for imita- 
tions of any and every style that wasn't American, espe- 
cially if it was English, Philadelphia tremendously 
pleased with itself for the bits borrowed from the English 
Universities and dumped down in its own University and 
out at Bryn JNIawr, there as unmistakable aliens as our 
own Rhodes Scholars are at Oxford. 

But from the moment Philadelphia began to look up 
its genealogy and respect it, the revival of Colonial was 
boimd, sooner or later, to follow. It meant a change from 
which I could not escape, had I deliberately refused to see 
the many others. I was face to face with it at every step 
I took, in every direction I went — from the Navy Yard on 
League Island to the far end of North Broad Street; from 
Germantown, the old grey stone here returned to its own 
again, to West Philadelphia; from the University where 
the Law School building looks grave and distinguished 
and genuine in the midst of sham Tudor and sham I hardly 
know what, and deplorable green stone, to the Racquets 
Club in town; from the tallest sky-scraper to the smallest 
workman's dwelling — it was Colonial of one sort or an- 
other: sometimes with fine results, at others with Colonial 
red brick and white facings and Colonial gables and 
Colonial columns and Colonial porches so abused that, 
after passing certain Colonial abortions repeated by the 
dozens, the hundreds, the thousands, in rows upon rows 
of two-story houses, all alike to the very pattern of the 

34 



530 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

awning and the curves of the rocking chair on the in- 
variable porch, I had it in my heart to wish that Phila- 
delphia had never heard the word Colonial. However, 
on the whole, more good has been done than harm. The 
original model is a fine one, it belongs to Philadelphia, 
and in reviving it the Philadelphia architect is working 
along legitimate lines. 

But even as I write this, I realise that it is not to 
the revival of Colonial that Philadelphia owes all its new 
beauty. Indeed, the architecture that has done most for it 
in its new phase is that from which least would be expected 
by those who believe in appropriateness or utility as in- 
dispensable to architectural beauty. A town that has 
plenty of space to spread out indefinitely has no reason 
whatever to spread up in sky-scrapers, and this is pre- 
cisely what Philadelphia has done and, moreover, looks all 
the better for having done. Its sky-scrapers compose 
themselves with marvellous effectiveness as a centre to 
the town, though they threaten by degrees to become too 
scattered to preserve the present composition; they pro- 
vide an astounding and ever-varying arrangement of 
towers and spires from neighbouring corners and cross- 
ings; they give new interest as a background to some 
simple bit of old Philadelphia, as where Wanamaker's 
rises sheer and high above the little red brick meeting- 
house in Twelfth Street; they add to the charm of some 
ambitious bit of new Philadelphia as where the little 
Girard Trust Building — itself a happy return to standards 




THE UNION LEAGUE BETWEEN THE SKY-SCRAPERS 



AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY 538 

that gave us Girard College and the Mint and Fair- 
mount Water- Works — stands low among the clustered 
towers, just as many a town in the Alps or Apennines 
lies low in the cup of the hills, and is the lovelier for 
it; they redeem from ugliness buildings of later periods, 
as where they give the scale in the most surprising fashion 
to the Union League; from far up or down the long- 
straight line of Broad Street they complete the perspective 
as impressively as the Arc de Triomphe completes that 
other impressive perspective from the Garden of the 
Tuileries in Paris. They are as beautiful when you see 
them from the bridges or from the Park, a great group 
of towers high above the houses, high above the lesser 
towers and spires, high above the curls and wisps of smoke 
that now hang over Philadelphia; and from the near 
country they give to the low-lying town a sky-line that 
for loveliness and grandeur is not to be surpassed by the 
famous first view of Pisa across the Italian plain. 

Philadelphia is, in truth, such a beautiful town that I 
am surprised the world should be so slow in finding it out. 
The danger to it now is the Philadelphian's determination 
to thrust beauty upon it at any cost, not knowing that it 
is beautiful already. There is too much talk everywhere 
about town-planning as a reform, as a part of the whole 
tiresome business of elevating the masses. As I have said, 
Penn talked no nonsense of that kind, nor did Sir Chris- 
topher Wren when he made the fine design that London 
had not the sense to stick to, nor L'Enfant when he laid 



.534 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

out Washington. For the town that gets into the cUitches 
of the reformer, I feel much as Whistler did for art — 
" What a sad state the slut is in an these gentlemen can 
help her." A town, like a woman, should cultivate good 
looks and cannot be too fastidious in every detail. But 
that is no reason why it should confuse this decent personal 
care with a moral mission. There is too much reform in 
Philadelphia just now for my taste, or its good. The 
idea of the new Parkway ; with fine buildings like the new 
Free Library and the new Franklin Institute, along its 
route through the town; with the City Hall at one end and 
the fine new Art Gallery in the Park at the other ; promises 
well, and I suppose that eventually the silly little wooden 
pergolas will disappear and the new buildings go up in 
their place. But though I know it sounds like shocking 
heresy, I should feel more confidence if its completion 
were in the hands of the old corrupt government we never 
tired of condemning, which may have stolen some of 
our money but at least gave us in return a splendidly 
planned and thoroughly well-kept Park, one of the most 
beautiful in the world. I believe that not only this monu- 
mental, but more domestic experiments are in view, the 
workman this time to profit — our old self-reliant American 
workman to have a taste of the benevolent interference that 
has taken the backbone out of the English workman. 
Rumours have reached me of emissaries sent to spy out 
the land in the Garden Cities of Germany and England. 
But what have we, in our far-famed Citv of Homes, to 






»"-« Jt^*-««»-r,*^ ii 






UP BROAD STRKKT FROM LKAGUE ISLAND 



AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY 537 

learn from other people's Garden Cities? For comfort, 
is the workman anywhere better off at a lower rent than 
in the old streets of neat little two-story brick houses, or 
in the new streets of luxurious little Colonial abortions? 
And what does he want with the reformer's gardens when 
he lives in the green country town of Philadelphia? 

V 

Philadelphia might have lost more of its old architec- 
ture and been less successful with its new, and would still 
be beautiful, for as yet it has not ceased to respect Penn's 
wish to see it fair and green. It is not so green as it was, 
1 admit — not so green as in the days of my childhood to 
which, in looking back, the spring always means streets 
too well lined with trees for my taste, since in every one 
those horrid green measuring worms were waiting to fall, 
crawding, upon me. There are great stretches in some 
streets from which the trees have disappeared, partly be- 
cause they do not prosper so well in the now smoke-laden 
air; partly because eveiy one blown down or injured must 
be replaced if replaced at all by some thrifty citizen held 
responsible for whatever damage it may do through no 
fault of his; partly, I believe, because at one time street 
commissioners ordered one or two in front of a house to 
be cut down, charged the landlord for doing it, and found 
too much profit not to persevere in their disastrous policy. 
Still, though Philadelphians in summer fly to little Eu- 
ropean towns to escape the streets they deplore as arid in 



.538 OUR PHILADELPHIA 

Philadelphia, I know of no other town as large that is as 
green. The notes I made in Philadelphia are full of my 
surprise that I should have forgotten how green and shady 
are its streets, how tender is this green in its first spring 
growth under the high luminous sky, how lovely the 
wistaria-draped walls in town and the dogwood in the 
suburbs. Walk or drive in whatever direction I chose, 
and at every crossing I looked up or down a long green 
vista, so that I understood the Philadelphia business man 
who described to me his daily walk from his Spruce Street 
house to the Reading Terminal as a lesson in botany. 
Ozi the other side of the Schuylkill, in any of the suburbs, 
every street became a leafy avenue. There were even- 
ings in that last June I spent in Philadelphia, when, 
the ugly houses bathed in golden light and the trees one 
long golden-green screen in front of them, I would not 
have exchanged Walnut or Spruce Street in West Phila- 
delphia or many a Lane in Germantown, for any famous 
road or boulevard the world over. Really, the trees con- 
vert the whole town into an annex, an approacli to that 
Park which is its chief green beauty and which, to me, 
was more than sufficient atonement for the corrupt govern- 
ment Philadelphia is said to have groaned under all the 
years Fairmount was growing in grace and beauty. And 
beyond the Park, beyond the suburbs, the leafy avenues 
run on for miles through as beautiful country as ever shut 
in a beautiful town. 



.«i^^;?'^■ 



Ij;,,;.,. 



y 



^i'W^l- 'ill \' 




FROM GRAY'S FERRY 



AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY 541 

VI 

After all, there is beauty enough left to last my time, 
and 1 suppose with that I should be content. Rut I can- 
not help thinking of the future, cannot help wondering, 
now that 1 see the change the last (piarter of a century 
has made, what the next will do for Philadelphia — whether 
after twenty-five years more a vestige of my Philadel- 
phia will survive. I do not believe it will ; 1 may be wrong, 
but I am giving my impressions for what they are worth, 
and nothing on my return impressed me so much as the 
change everywhere and in everything. I think any Ameri- 
can, from no matter what part of the country, who has been 
away so long, must, on going back, be impressed in the 
same way — must feel with me that America is growing 
day by day into something as different as possible from 
his America. For my part, I am just as glad I shall not 
live to see the Philadelphia that is to emerge from the 
present chaos, since I have not the shadow of a doubt that, 
whatever it may be, it will be as unlike Philadelphia as I 
have just learned to know it again, as this new Philadel- 
phia is unlike my old Philadelphia, the beautiful, peace- 
ful town where roses bloomed in the sunny back-yards and 
people lived in dignity behind the plain red brick fronts of 
the long narrow streets. 



INDEX 



Al)l)cy. Kilwin A., .'!!).'! 

Academy of Fine Arts, (i4. 4:51, 87(i. ;57!), 

380, ;58!). ,'5!).), ^O'^, 4().j, 407, 4W, 448 
Academy of Music, "ZOd, 459 
Academy of Natural Sciences, 04 
Acorn (1ul), 4i)4 
Adams, John, (i, .)(), 1(11, 4!)7, ,'58,5, 418- 

444 
Addams, Clifford, 407 
Adel{)hia, the, 499 
Adirondacks (mountains), KiO 
Aitken, Robert, S\() 
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 44,'! 
Alexander, John \V., .'59.'i 
Alluimbra, The, 31o 
Alicia, Mother, 371 
.\llen's, 145 

America, new and old, 539 
American, the (weekly), 249 
American Army crossing the Delaware, 

375 
American Philosophical Society, 418 
Angelo, Michael, 373 
Annabel, Miss, school, 458 
Annals, Watsons, 314 
Antin, Mary, 467 
Appian etchings, 395 
Arabian Xighf.\; The, 04 
Arc de Triomphe, 405 
Arch Street Meeting House, 140, 517 
Arch Street Theatre, 67, 459 
Ardea, Father, 191, 194 
Arnold, Matthew, 161, 344-344 
Arnold's Mansion, 541 
Arrah-iia-Pogiic. 67 

Art Gallery in the Park, i)roposed, 534 
Art (Industrial) School, 457, 330, 332, 405 
Art Xoureaii, 408 
Assembly, the (social), 153-174, 206, 416, 

454, 400, .304, 316, 503 
Atlantic City, 170, 446, 452, 498 
Atlantic Monthly, 243, 244, 457 
Augustine's, 60, 148, 151, 153, 281, 4;38, 

439, 449 



Bailey, Banks & Biddle, 145, 45() 

|{ala Country Club, 493, 495 

Baldwin's Locomotive Wi.rks, 228, 477 

Bank, Philadeljjhia, 49 

Baptists, 176, 183 

Bar Harbor, 169 

Barber, Alice, 396 

Barcelona (churches of), 199 

Barrett, Lawrence, 324 

Barrie (pul)lisher of art books), .376 

Bartram, John, 31, 300, 541 

Bartram's Garden, 31, 44, 299-303, 337, 

521, 522 
Bayswater. England, 493 
Beau Nash, 145 
Beaux, Cecilia, 406 
Beaux- Arts (school), 407 
Beidelman (architecture), .'5(il 
Bellamy (Looking Backward), 338 
Bellevue-Stratford (hotel), 148, 164, 414, 

447, 500, 503 
Belmont (Fairmount Park), 410, 299, 4,'50. 

496 
Bennett. Arnold, 478, 486, -^"iri 
Bibliotheciue Nationale, 14 
Biddle, Miss Julia, .'599 
Biddies, 50. 145, 414-216 
Biglow Papers, 340 
Black Crook, The, 67 
Blanchard (publisher), 313 
Blankenburg, Rudolph, 465 
Blitz, Signor, 91 
Blum, Robert, artist, 246, 393 
Board of Education, 457 
Bobbelin, Father, 192 
Boker, George H., 316, 32.'}-.'525 
Booth, Edwin, 68 
Borghesi collection (art), 406 
Borie, C. L. Jr., architect, 407 
Bories, the, 31, 107 
Borrow, George Henr\-, .'520 
Boswell, James, 290 
Boudreau, Father, 193 
Boudrcau, Mother, 97 

543 



544 



INDEX 



Bowie, Mrs., social leader, 146, 147 

Boyle, John, sculptor. 396 

Bradstreet, Anne, 309 

Breitmann Ballads, 320, 456 

Brennan, artist, 393 

Brewster, Benjamin Harris, 342 

Briggs, Richard, 424 

Briilat-Savarin, 414 

British Museum, 12, 309 

Broad and Locust Streets, 257, 258, 259, 

449 
Broad and Walnut, 42 
Broad Street, 324, 449, 489, 499-503, 529, 

533 
Broad Street, North, 459, 529 
Broad Street Station, 12 
Brook Farm, 347 

Brown, Charles Brockden, 313, 363 
Browning Societies, 352 
Bryn Mawr, 98, 104, 173, 307, 364, 529 
Bullitts, the, 107 
Bunyan, John, 308 
Burns's, 126, 210, 456 
Burr, Anna Robeson, 363 
Burr, Charles, 363 
Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, 314 
Business and Professional Club, 352 

Cadwallader-Biddle, 343 

Cadwalladers, 50, 145, 216 

Caldwell, J. E. & Co., 125, 456 

Callista, 59 

Callowhill, Hannah, 417 

Callowhill Street Bridge, 281 

Camac Street, 351 

Camden (N. J.), 293, 324-329 

Campanini, opera singer, 401 

Campbell, Helen, 338 

Cape May, 170 

Carlyle, Thomas, 243 

Carpenter's Hall, 514 

Carson, Hampton L., 0, 363 

Cary (publisher), 313 

Casket, The, 314, 428 

Cassatt, Mary, 393 

Castleman, Richard, 6 

Cathedral, the, 120, 183, 184, 187, 198, 

200, 203 
Catholics, 176, 177-204, 258 



Cavalcaselle, Giovanni B., 402 
Centennial Exposition, 205-232, 233, 234, 

253, 267, 276, 277, 357, 375, 390 
Century, The, 337 
Champs-Elysees, 405 
Chapman, Miss, school, 258 
Charles the Bold, 337 
Chartres Cathedral, 199 
Chartreuse, the old, 444 
Chase, William M., 246 
Chester, 54, 152 

Chestnut Hill, 78, 123, 129, 170, 258 
Chestnut Street, 125, 144, 226, 227, 325, 

342, 368, 449, 456, 459, 499 
Chestnut Street Theatre, 67, 459 
"Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce, and Pine," 

119, 123, 151, 158, 182, 263, 297, 464 
Chew House, 297, 298, 518 
Childs, George W., 113, 342, 499 
Chippendale furniture, 289 
Christ Church, 114, 120, 183, 188, 277 

517 
Christ Church Burial Ground, 120, 281 
Church (painting), 246 
Church of England, 183 
Cimabue, Giovanni, 402 
City Companies in London, 152 
City Hall, 259, 260, 405, 489, 526, 534 
City of Homes, 481, 534 
City Troop, 64, 452, 510 
Civic Club, 494 
Civil War, the, 130, 146, 518 
Claghorn's collection of old prints, 376, 

394 
Clements, Gabrielle, 396 
Clinton Street, 514 
Clover Club, 152, 443 
Club (Art), South Broad Street, 406 
Coates, Mrs. Florence Earle, 336, 362 
Cobbett, William, 440, 485, 513 
Coghlan, Father, 193 
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 324 
College Club, the, 494 
Colonial (American) art, 381, 389 
Colonial Congress, 253, 267 
Colonial Dames, 219, 221, 361, 522, 525 
Colonial days, 283, 526 
Colonial doorways, 361 
Colonial history, 9 



INDEX 



545 



Colonial housos, 6, ;J(i, 7:?, 1.58, •iH-2, '297, 
!2iKS, liH'i, 443. 44.). 4(!(». 4»(i. .518, o-ZO, S'ii) 

Colonial life and society, (>, 44;{ 

Colonists, 49.) 

Colonnade (hotel). 1 48 

Colunihia (College), ;5()4 

Coniegys. Mrs., school, '258 

Complete Cookcrij (Miss Leslie), 423-430 

Coneord (Mass.), 347-348 

Coney Island, 213 

Confians (convent), 175 

Congress Hall, 5'2'2 

Connor, Mrs., social leader, 147 

Contemporary Clnh, 3,)'2 

Continent, Onr, 252, 293 

Continental (hottl), 148 

Convent, 27, 31, 34, 36, 47, 55. 59, 63, 67, 
68, 72 sq., 104, 117, 126, 133-137, 175 
sq., 205, 238, 241, 258, 368, 372, 373, 
374, 451 

Convent at Paris, 222 

Cooper, Colin Campbell, 396 

Cope, Walter, architect, 407 

Copley, John Singleton, 389 

Country Clubs, 152, 162, 447, 494-496 

Courts (of law), 468, 500 

Cox, Kenyon (painting), 246 

Cramp's shipyard, 228, 477 

"Crazy Xorah," 27, 35, 375 

Crowe. Joseph Archer, 402 

Cruikshank drawings, 375 

Curtis Publishing Co. Building, 355 

Cushman, Charlotte, 68 

Dana, AVilliam P. AV., artist, 393 
Dancing Class, 138, 139, 143-145, 147, 

148, 157, 182, 184, 203, 254, 260, 304, 

316, .503 
Darlington butter, 440 
Darlington, J. G. & Co., 125, 456 
Darwin, Charles, 242 
Daughters of Pennsylvania, 219, 221 
Davenports, the (actors), 64 
Davis, Clarke, 246 
Davis, Mrs. Retjccca Harding, 336 
Davis, Richard Harding, 336 
Day, Frank Miles, architect, 407 
Declaration of Independence, 158, 214, 

227, 253, 267, 418, 419 



Decorative Art Club, .399 

Delaware River, 278. 294, 308, 455 

Dexter's, 35, 88, 126, 45(; 

Dickens, Charles, 6, 59, 375, 427 

Dickinson, Jonathan, 15, 313 

Dillaye, Blanche, 396 

Domestic Economy (Miss Leslie), 428 

Drama- Reforming Societies, 352 

Dreka Co. (engraver), 125, 148, 151, 456 

Drew, Mrs. John (actress), 68 

Drexel, Anthony J., 342 

Drexel Institute, 405 

Duclaux, Mine (Mary Robinson), 260 

Duke of Westminster's collection (art), 

40(i 
Dundas house, 42, 108, 459 
Dutch descent, 219 
Dutch in New York, 16 
Dutch Jew, 467 

Earle's, 125 

Eastern Shore. Maryland, 219, 245, 246 

Eberlein, Harold Donaldson, 6, 361 

Education. Board of, 257 

Eleventh Street, 34, 48 

Eleventh and Spruce (streets), 44, 47, 

48 sq., 94, 102, 104, 314, 427, 430 
Eliot, George, 401 
Eliphas, Levi, 242 
Elkins art collection, 400 
Ellwanger, G. H., 424 
Elwood, Thomas, 15, 308 
Episcopal Academy, 143. 1(>2, 181, 258, 
455 
Head Master of, 181 
Episcopalians, 176, 177, 183, 187 
Evening Telegraph, 246, 341 
Ewing, Miss Julia, 341 
Exposition, Centennial, 205-232 
Eyre, Wilson, 407 

Fahiola, 59 

Fairmount Park, 64, 129, 173, 210. 213, 

281, 299, 444, 486, 496, 521, 533, 534, 

5,38 
Fairmount Water- Works, 299, 533 
Faith Gartney's Girlhood, 59, "335 
Ferris, Stephen, 394 
Fildes, Luke, 231 



546 



INDEX 



Fisher, Sydney George, 6, 309, 358 

Fishers, the, 31 

Fish-House Club, 152, 443 

Fitzgerald, Edward, 423 

Fool's Errand, 338 

Forget-Me-Not, 348 

Fourth of July, 63 

Fox, George, 15, 308 

Franceftca da Rimini, 324 

Frankford, 81, 489, 522 

Franklin, Benjamin, 24, 106, 215, 216, 

253, 263, 281, 290, 355, 310, 313, 358, 

386, 389, 400, 417, 422, 482 
Franklin Inn, 351 
Franklin Institute, 263, 534 
Free Puhlic Library, 307, 534 
French Bcvohdion (Thiers), 375 
Friends, 1, 9, 15, 16, 20, 92, 134, 166, 197, 

203, 258, 283, 289, 290, 294, 307, 309, 

357, 380, 386, 389, 513 
Friends' School (Germantown), 258 
Fromuth, marine painter, 406 
Front Street, 278, 281, 290, 326, 514, 517 
Frost, Arthur B., artist, 393 
Furness (architecture), 407, 526 
Furness, Dr. Horace Howard, 332, 335 
Furness, Horace Howard, Jr., 362, 363 
Furness, William Henry, D.D., 332. 335 

Garber, Dani^el, 407 
Gebbie and Barrie, 125, 376 
German mystics, 176 
Germans (immigrants), 471 
Germantown, 91, 123, 124, 258, 294, 297, 

336, 468, 477, 496, 518, 521, 526, 529,' 

538 
Germantown Cricket Ground, 496 
Gettysburg (battle-fields), 518 
Gibson collection, 379 
Gift, The, 314 

Gilchrist, Mrs. Alexander, 119, 284, 287 
Gillespie, Mrs., social leader, 215, 216, 

253 
Giotto di Bondone, 402 
Girard College, 123, 379, 533 
Girard House, 148 
Girard Trust Building, 530 
Gissing, George, 239 
Glackens, William J., illustrator, 406 



Glackmeyer, Father, 193 

Glasse, Mrs. (Cookery Book), 314, 423- 

428 
Godey's Lady's Book. 314, 337 
Gough Square (London), 324 
Grafly, Charles, sculptor, 407 
Graham's (Magazine), 314, 337 
Grants, the, 31 
Gray's Ferry, 281, 299, 521 
Green, Elizabeth Shippen, 406 
Greene, General, 418 
Greland, Miss, 107 
Grigg.s (publisher), 313 
Groton (school), 162 

Haden, Seymour, etchings, 395, 396 

Hale, Mrs. Sarah Josepha, 314, 428 

Hallowell, Mrs. Sarah, 341 

Hamilton, J. McLure. 393 

Handy, Moses P., 245 

Hans Brcitmann, 320, 456 

Harland, Marion, 428 

Harper's (magazine), 238, 337 

Harrison, Alexander, 393 

Harrison, Birge, 393 

Harrison, John, 405 

Harrison, Mrs. (Art Club), 399 

Harvard (College), 162 

Ha.ssler's band, 140, 148 

Haverford (.school), 258 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. 347 

Hawthorne, Rose, 347 

Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 6, 157, 

216, 220, 290, 307, 315, 364, 459 
Hogarth's engravings, 376 
Holloway, Edward Stratton, 406 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 243 
Holmesburg, 258 
Holy Trinity (church), 183 
Home Arts School (London), 257 
Homer and Colladay's, 125 
Hooper, Mrs. Lucy, 341 
Hopkins, the, 31 
Hopkins, Dr. (dentist), 64 
Horticultural Hall, 347, 503 
Hospital, Penn.sylvania, 24, 114, 277, 358, 

460 
Hotel Meurice, 222 
Howells, William Dean, 259, 401 



INDEX 



,>47 



IIowliiiKr.s Hold ;it LoiiK Hniiuli, 1(!!) 
Iliibboirs, li>(i, 4.1!) 
Hudson Hivor School, ;5!)0 
Hugh U'yinir, .'{.")7, .'{.)S, .'Ui:? 
Hughes and Mullcr, 4,)(i 
Hiiguct. Madame, 77, .S.> 
Hiuit, Holnian. 372, .'57.'5 
Huntington \'alley Club, 495 
Hutchinson Ports, 363 

Impressionists (artists), ;5!)() 

Independence Hall, 4(17 

Independence Square, .'5,>,), 4(i7 

Industrial Art School, 2.57, .'{.'!(), .'5!)(i, .'599 

Ingersolls, the, 145 

Inifials. The, 59 

International expositions. 213, 231, 253 

Irish immigrants, 471 

Irving, Henry, 401 

Irving, Washington, 315 

Irwin, Miss, school, 140, 175, 258 

Italians (immigrants), 404, 468 

James, Henry, 6, 16, 401, 509 

Janauschek (actress), 348 

Janvier, Thomas Alliljone, 169, 303, 334- 

437, 443 
Jastrow, Dr. Morris, 364 
Jefferson, Thomas, 50, 386, 418 
Jenkins, Howard, 249 
Jesuits, 191, 19.3, 197 
Jew, Dutch, 467 
Jew, Pennsylvania, 467, 514 
Jew, Russian. 214, 282, 283, 297, 361, 460, 

404-473, 525 
Jews, religious liberty of, 177 
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 324 
Johnson House, 297, 521 
Johnson's, John G., art collection, 406 
Jones's, 120, 210, 444, 450 
Jourdain, M., 282 
June, Jenny, 428 

Kate Vincent, 178 
Keatings, the, 31 
Kellogg, Clara Louise, 07 
Kensington, 228, 297, 477 
Kensington, England, 493 
Keppel, Frederick, 370 



Kings, (he, 31 
Kirk, John Foster, 337 
Kirkbride's Insane Asylum. 2().3 
Kneller, i)ortrait-i)ainler, .389 
Knigiit, Hidgway, 393 
Kugler, Franz. 402 

La Belle Ilclcne, 68 
La (irande Duchesse, 68 
La Pierre House, 148 
Ladies' Home Journal, 355 
Ladies of the Sacred Heart, 72. 93 

Convent, 72 sq. 
Ladu of Shalott, 27, 373 
Lalanne etchings, 395 
Lamb, Cliarles, 126, 324 
Lamplighter, The, 56 
Long, John Luther, 363 
Lathrop, 1VL-. and Mrs. George, 347 
Latin Quarter, 411 
Laurel Hill, 521 
Law Courts, 468, 500 
Law School, building, 529 
Lea, Henry Charles, 313, 303 
League Island, 529 
Leary's, 126 

Ledger (newspaper), 113, .341, 355 
Lee, Vernon (Violet Paget), 260 
Leland, Charles Godfrey, 42, 234- 

240-244, 254, 257, 26.3, 272, 275, 

316, 319-330, 332, 335, 344-.348, 

399, 405 
Leland, Charles Godfrey, Memoirs of. 
L'Enfant (architect), 533 
Leslie, Margaret (artist), 396 
Leslie, Miss, Cookery Book, 313, 423 
Levi, Eliphas, 242 
Lewises, 50 

Li Hung Chang, 20, 513 
Library, Bryn Mawr College, 307 
Library of Congress, 309 
Library, Free Public, 307, 534 
Library, Friends', Germantown, 307 
Library, Historical Society, 307 
Library, Mercantile, 114, 241 
Library, Philadelphia, 24, 114, 241. 

307, 455 
Library, Ridgway, 241. 307, .304 
Life of Blake, 119 



238, 
276, 
396, 

276 



437 



290, 



548 



INDEX 



Lionardo da Vinci, 402 
Lippincott, Horace Mather, 6, 361 
Lippincott, J. B., 124, 313 
Lippincott's (book-store), 125, 313, 315 
Lippincoff's Magazine, 243, 314, 315, 337, 

341, 427 
Lithuanians (immigrants), 468, 473 
"Little Enghind" of Kensington, 19 
"Little Street of Clubs, the," 351, 406 
Lire.1 of the Artists. 373 
Locust Street, 472 
Logan, Deborah, 309 
Logan, James, 31, 177, 184, 241, 307, 417, 

421, 518 
Logan Square, 120, 1C2, 500 
Loganian Library (see Ridgway), 364 
Lombard Street, 472 
Long Branch, 169 
Longfellow, Henry W., 320, 329 
Looking Backward, 338 
Lost TIeiress, The, 59 
Lowell, James Russell, 316 

Macalisters, the, 31 

McCalls, the, 158 

McCarter, Henry, artist, 407 

MacVeagh, Wayne, 343 

Madeira (wine), 55, 153, 417-423, 506, 

510 
Maennerchor Garden, 500 
Main Line, 31, 123, 297 
Main Street in Germantown, 297 
Manayimk, 522 
Maria, Father de, 191 
Marion, General Francis, 216 
"Market, Arch, Race and Vine," 281 
Market Street, 119, 120, 123, 157, 281, 

294, 310, 329, 451, 456, 489 
Martin, Madame, 137, 138 
Maryland, Eastern Shore of, 219 
Matisse, artist, 402 
Mayflower (ship), 219, 525 
Meeting-Houses, 188, 281, 517 
Meg Merrilics, 27, 68, 375 
Memorial Hall, 213, 405, 526 
Mennonites in Germantown, 176 
Mercantile Library, 114, 241, 307 
Merritt, Mrs. Anna Lea, 393 
Methodists, 183 



Mifflin. Mrs. (Art Club), 399 

Millais, John Everett, 275, 392 

Miller, Leslie, 396 

Milton, John, 308 

Mint, United States, 108, 130, 379, 459, 

533 
Mischief in the Middle Ages, 243 
Mitchell, Dr. S. Weir, 6, 357, 363, 456 
Moore, Mrs. Bloomfield, 379 
Moran family, 394 
Moravians, monasteries of, 176 
Morrises, the, 216 
Morris, Gouverneur, 133 
Morris, Harrison S., 362 
Morris House, 297, 521 
Morris, William, 400, 408 
Mother Goose, 242 
Mount Airy, 170 
Mount Pleasant, 31. 299 
Moxon's Tennyson, 372 
Moyamensing Prison, 263 
Murillo (painting), 372 
Mustin's, 125 

Napoleon, pictures of, 374 

Narragansett Pier, 169 

Nash, Richard ("Beau"), 145 

Natatorium, 139, 140, 145, 499 

Nation, the (New York), 249 

National Observer, 294 

Navy Yard, 529 

New Century Club, 494 

New Testament (German), 310 

New Years Day, 152 

New York magazines, 337 

Newman's Callisfa. 59 

Nilsson, Christine, 401 

Ninth and Green (streets), 489, 500 

Nordau, Max, 402 

Norrises, the, 216 

Norris, Isaac, 15, 417 

North American, the, 355 

Northern Liberties, 522 

Oakdale Park, 293 
Oakley, Thornton, 406 
Oakley, Violet, 406 
Old Mam'selle's Secret, 335 
Old Swedes Church, 114, 120 



INDEX 



549 



Orpheus (lul), !.>;$ 

Ouida-s (iiiardsman, '■275 

Our American Coiixin, (i7 

Our Confluent, 252, 337, 341 

Our Convent Days, 88, 358 

Ours, {>? 

Oxford (En-;land), 8(1, .529 

Oxford, Dr. (cookery hooks), 424 

Page, .(leorffe Bisphani, architect, 407 

Paget, Violet (Vernon Lee), 260 

Park (.see Fairmount), 534, 538 

Parkway, tlie new, 405, 534 

Parrish," Maxfield, 40G 

Parrisii, Stephen, 3!)(J 

Patterson. General, house of, 108, 459 

Peale, Charles Wilson, 389 

Pegasus Societies, 352 

Penn Club, 351 

Penn, John, 517 

Penn. William, 2, 9. 10, 15. 24, 31, 35, 36, 

74, 85, 117, 219, 260, 282. 287-289, 290, 

294, 375, 382, 408, 417, 421, 455, 456, 

474, 500, 526, 533 
Penn, William, statue of, 9 
Pennell, Joseph, 1, 24, 203, 219, 237, 246, 

268, 271-303, 308, 337, 338, 341, 348, 

351, 357, 368, 376, 380, 393-395, 474 
Pennock Brothers, 144, 439 
Pennsbury, 31 
Penn.sylvania Historical Society, 6, 157, 

216, 290, 315, 364 
Pennsylvania Hospital, 24. 114, 277, 358, 

460 
Pennsylvania Jew, 467 
Pennsylvania, promotion of science by, 309 
Pennsylvania Railroad, 276 
Pennsylvania Railroad Station, 276, 448, 

451 
Pennsylvania, University of, 143, 162, 

173, 258, 358, 364, 47,3, 496, 526 
Pennypacker, Governor, 307 
Peppers, the, 50, 399 
Peterson's (magazine), 314, 337 
Philadelphia Art Club, 324 
Philadelphia Bank, 49 
Philadelphia Club, 153, 316, 443, 510 
Philadelphia Library, 24, 114, 241, 290, 

307, 31,3, 315, 455 



Philadelphia Saturday Museum, .314 

Phillips, John S., ,376 

Philosophieal .Society, .\merican, 418 

Picasso, artist, 402 

Plastic Club, 406 

Pocahontas, 9 

Poe, Hdgar Allan, 27, 31 (i 

Poor Richard (club), .352 

Poor Richard's Almanac, 310 

Poore, Harry, 271, 272 

Pope of Rome, 120 

Pope's Head, 310 

Porter and Coates, 125, 315 

Po.st-Impressionists, 381 

Powhatan, 9 

Pre-Raphaelites, ,373, .390 

Presbyterian Building, 271 

Presbyterians, 176, 183 

Press, the, 245 

Provence, 60 

Public Buildings (see City Hall), 10,526 

Public Industrial Art School, 405 

Punch (London), 252 

Puritans (New England), 417 

Putnam (N. Y. publisher), 315 

Pyle, Howard, 249, 393 

Quakers (see Friends), 15 
Queechy, 59, 335 

Race (Sassafras) Street, 281 

Racquet Club, 499, 529 

Rafael (pictures), 372, 375 

Ralph (Franklin's friend), 310 

Randolph House, 463 

Reading Terminal, 538 

Redfield, Edward W., artist, 407 

Rembrandt (painting), 246, 406 

Renaissance, period of, 11 

Repplier, Agnes, 6, 88, 358 

Revolution (American), 382, 389, 418, 

518, 525 
Rhodes scholars, 86, 529 
Richards, William T., artist, .393 
Ridgway Library, 241, 307, 364 
Rittenhouse Smiths, 363 
Rittenhouse Square, 24, 91, 120, 1.39, 198, 

456 
Ritz-Carlton (hotel), 148, 414, 447 



550 



INDEX 



Robin Hood (Howard Pyle's), 249 

Robins, Edward, Jr., 358 

Robins, Edward, Sr., 1, 34, 50, 54, 56, 74, 

81, 107, 111, 123, 130, 138, 178, 181, 

183, 187, 200, 239, 244, 259, 260, 263, 

294, 307, 323, 371, 372, 374, 375, 423, 

427, 459, 500, 505 
Robins, Grant, 139, 140, 147, 165, 216, 

505 
Robins, Mrs. Thomas, 40, 41, 43, 53, 54, 

56, 60, 61, 183, 239, 268, 437 
Robins, Thomas, 1, 34-36, 41, 43, 48-63, 

107, 178, 183, 219, 222, 307, 314, 357, 

373-375, 413, 421, 459 
Robinson, Mary (Mme. Dnchiux). 260 
Rogers, Fairman, 493 
"Rogers Group," 39, 374, 375 
Romanticists (artists), 390 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 506 
Rorer, Mrs. (cookery book), 428 
Ross, Bet.sy, house of, 281 
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 119, 372, 373 
Rossetti, William Michael, 119, 284 
Roulledge, 59 
Royal Academy, 3S9, 411 
Royal Exchange, 411 
Rubaiyaf, the, 401 
Rubens (painting), 246 
Rue de Rivoli, 225 
Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 241, 307 
Rush, Mrs., social leader, 146, 149 
Ruskin, John, 287, 400, 402 
Russian Jew, 214, 282, 283, 297, 361, 460, 

464-471, 473 

Sacred Heart, Ladies of the, 72 
Convent of, 72 sq., 258 
St. Andrew's (church), 184 
St. Augu.stine's (church), 198 
St. Clement's (church), 184, 278 
St. James's (church), 183 
St. John's (church), 183, 199, 200, 203 
St. Jcseph's (church), 64, 91, 183, 184, 

187, 188, 191, 193-199 
St. Mark's (church), 183, 200 
St. Mary's (church), 184, 198, 199, 278 
St. Michael's (church), 198 
St. Patrick's (church), 91, 183, 199, 200, 

203 



St. Paul's (school), 162 

St. Peter's (church), 108, 114, 183, 188, 

277, 463, 514 
Salons (Paris), 411 
Sargent, John S., artist. 393 
Sartain, Miss Emily, 338, 393 
Sartain, William, 393 
Sarfaht's Union Magazine, 314 
Sassafras (Race) Street, 281 
Saturday Club, 152 
Saturday Evening Post, 355 
Saur's New Testament, 310 
Sautter's, 126, 444, 449, 456, 506 
Schaumberg, Emily, 107 
School Board, 259 
School of Industrial Arts, 257, 330, 332, 

405 
Schools, Public, 335 
Schuylkill (river), 173, 276, 281, 294, 299, 

362, 451, 468, 481, 496, 538 
Scott, Walter, 59 

heroines of, 27, 375 
novels of, 197, 335, 336, 427 
Second Street, 42, 137, 147, 148, 166, 277, 

517 
Second Street Market, 114, 120, 277 
Seminary at Villanova, 198 
Senat, Prosper, 395 
Seville (churches of), 199 
Shakespeare Societies, 352 
Shakespeare, William, 68, 332, 363, 401 
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 145, 313 
Sheppard, J. B. & Sons, 125 
Shinn (apothecary), 459 
Shippen, Edward, 42 
Shippen, Peggy, 31, 162 
"Shippen, Peggy," 162, 356 
Shippens, the, 158 
Simses, the, 158 
Sketch Club, 406 
Sky-scrapers, 355, 530 
Slavs (immigrants), 468, 471 
Smarius, Father, 193 
Smedley, William T., artist, 393 
Smith, Albert, 263 
Smith, Jessie Wilcox, 406 
Smith, Lloyd, 242 
Smith, Logan Pearsall. 364 
Smith, Provost, house of, 281 



indp:x 



5.51 



Society Hill. 52^2 

Solon SliliKjlc. (u 

Sons of IVnnsylvaniii, '•21!), •i^l 

SotluTii, Kdward Askew, (iS 

South Ki'ii.siniiton, Kiij^land, 4()S 

South Street, 472 

Southwark, 5^22 

Southworth, Mrs. Eniiua D. K. Xevitt, 5!) 

So2U'cnir, The, Sli 

Springett, Guli, 15 

Spruce Street, ^S, 34, ■1'2, 48 sq., 60, 63, 

104, 107, 108, 113, 114, ^2I;>, 245, 253, 

282, 460, 468, 538 
State House, the, 113, 158, 220, 277, 358, 

382, 471. 514 
State in Schuylkill, 443 
Station (Broad and Market), 48!) 
Stations and terminals, 12, 28, 270, 481, 

489, 538 
Station-s (railroad), 481, 489, 538 
Steadmans, the, 31 
Steevens, George, 449, 478 
Stenton, 31, 297, 298, 518 
Stephens (artist), 396 
Stephens, Alice Barber, 396 
Stephens, Charles H., 396 
Stevenson, Mrs. Cornelius, 364 
Stewardson. John, architect, 407 
Stewart, Jules, 393 

Stock Exchange, 54, 107, 111, 408,486, 500 
Stockton, Frank R., 336, 338 
Stockton, Louise, 338 
Stokes, Frank W., artist, 406 
Strawberry Mansion, 210, 299, 430 
Strawbridge and Clothier, 125 
Stuart, Gilbert, artist, ,389 
Stuart, Gilbert, picture of Washington 

by, 41, 374, 375, 447 
Swarthmore (school), 258 
Swedes (immigrants), 471 
Swedes Church, Old. 114, 277, 514 

Telegraph, Erening, 246 
Temple, the (London), 324 
Tennyson's Poems, 27, 372, 373 
Terminals (railroad), 12, 481, 489, 538 
Terry, Ellen, 401 

Thackeray (William Makepeace), 151, 
294, 422 



Thanksgiving Day, 63 

Tiieatre Frangais, 68 

Theatres, 67 

Thiers" French Revolution, 375 

Third Street, 28, 107, 111, 113, 131., 137, 

187, 206, 278, 290, 486 
Thomas, George C, 307 
Thompson, "Aunt .\d," 342 
Thouron, Henry, 406 
Torresdale, 28, 31, 72 s(|., 123, 191, 258 

278, 451 
Tourgee. Juflge Albion W., 252, 338 
Traubel, Horace, 364 
Traveller, The, 315 

Treaty with the Indians (I'enn), 375 
Tree, Beerbohm, 68 
Trollope, Anthony, 401 
Trotter, Alary, 396 
Trumbauer, Horace, architect, 407 
Tuilerics (Paris), 222, 533 
Twelfth and Market, 489 
Twelfth Street Market, 54 

Linion League, 152, 443, 447, 533 
University of Pennsylvania, 143, 162, 173, 

258, 307, 364, 473, 496, 526, 529 
University, Provosts of, 119 
LTniversity School (architecture), 407 

Van Rensselaer, Mrs. John King, 363 
\'an Tromp, Miss, miniatures, 395 
Vaux, Richard, 342 
Vicaire {Bibliographic), 424 
Vienna Cafes (Centennial), 210, 227 
Villanova Seminary, 198 
Villon, Frangois, essay on, 238 
Virginia Company, the first, 219 
Virginia, early settlers in, 216, 219 
Voltaire (author), 428, 513 

Walnut Lane, 298, 538 

Walnut Street, 184, 203, 297, 468. 489, 

494, 538 
Walnut Street Theatre, 67 
Wanamakers, 530 
War, Civil, the, 130 
Ward, Genevieve, 348 
Wardle, Thomas (bookseller), 313 
Washington (city), 226, 534 



55^2 



INDEX 



Washington, George, 44, 119, 215, 290, 

482, 526 
Washington's Birthday, 63 
Washington's househohi, 44, 166, 433 
Washington, statue of, 386 
Waterloo (eve of), 254 
Water-works (Fairmount), 64, 67, 299, 

533 
Watson, John, 6, 356, 357, 413 
Watts, Harvey M., 362 
Waugh, Frederick J., marine painter, 406 
Welsh, John, 50 
West, Benjamin, 64, 389 
West Philadelphia, 126, 294, 297, 468, 

529, 538 
Wharton, Anne HoUingsworth, 6, 361 
Whartons, the, 50, 145, 216 
Whelans, the, 31 
Whiiitler, James A. McNeill, 16, 395, 396, 

405, 534 
White. Ambrose, 78, 120 
White, Bishop, 290 
White, Dr. (dentist), 64 
White, William, 144 
White, Willie, 144, 145 
Whitefield, George, 177 
Whitman, Walt, 119, 316, 324-331, 336, 

337. 344, 347, 364 
Whittier, John G., 320 
Wide, Wide World, The, 59, 335 



Widener, Peter A. B., 307, 406 

Wilde, Oscar, 344, 347 

Williams, Dr. Francis Howard, 336, 362 

Williams, Dr. Talcott, 364 

Willing's Alley, 184 

Willings, the, 158 

Willis, N. P., 316 

Willow Grove, 213 

Wilstach Collection, 405 

Wise, Herbert C, 361 

Wissahickon (creek), 127, 177, 298, 299 

Wistar House, 297, 521 

Wistar parties, 146 

Wister, Mrs., authoress, 335, 336 

Wister, Owen, 363 

"Wister, Sally," 162, 356 

Wisters, the, 107 

Woman in White (German mystics), 176 

Woman's School of Design, 405 

Wood, Bishop, 200, 203 

Woodland's, 126 

Wren, Sir Christopher, 283, 289, 533 

Wyck, 297, 521 

Wyeth's, 126, 456 

Yale (college), 162 
Yearly Meeting, 289 
Yellow Buskin, the, 405 

Zantzinger, C. C, architect, 407 
Zola, Emile, 259 



